Yukan Club and the Flower Four
by Kiraya Sakira
Summary: My NaNoWriMo. Yukan club/Hana Yori Dango. Yaoi and het. Rated for safety.
1. Chapter 1

Yukan Club and the Flower Four

Chapter 1: Teen of Japan

Inside the St. President's Academy Student Government room, six students could be found skipping class… again. The Student Body President, Kikumasamune Seishiro sat by the window, sitting on his knees as he played a game of Go. His straight black, chin-length hair framed his thin face, and his brown eyes stayed glued to the Go board in front of him. His family owned a large hospital, and he was the student of a famous martial artist, Master Unkai. Seishiro was the strongest fighter of the group, and also the most intelligent, thus held the position of the Yukan Club's leader.

Shochikubai Miroku, the Student Body Vice President, sat at the hexagonal table in the center of the circular room, strumming a random tune on his acoustic guitar with a sucker in his mouth. His hair was long and thick, falling away from his face in layers, the light brown enhancing the color of his coal-black eyes. His father was the Police Commissioner for all of Japan, and along the way Miroku had befriended so many people that he seemed to know everyone. Whenever the Yukan Club needed information, Miroku was guaranteed to find someone who could tell him within minutes.

The Student Body Manager, Bidou Granmarie, sat at the table next to him, gazing at his own self in a hand mirror. His long, curly platinum hair and bright blue eyes never failed to capture attention in a predominantly black-haired nation. His father was the Swedish Embassador, and Bidou participated in horse competitions worldwide. He was a narcissist, often spending hours gazing at his own reflection.

Across from Bidou sat Kizakura Karen, the Student Body Secretary. Her long brown hair flowed down her back as she leaned forward, her calculating brown eyes counting the love letters she'd received that morning. Her mother owned a large jewelry chain, and Karen's dream was to marry a wealthy man.

Between Bidou and Karen and across from Miroku sat a girl with chin-length brown hair and brown eyes eating a slice of cheesecake furiously. She was known as Kenbishi Yuri, the school's Sports Club president. Yuki's family owned the Kenbishi Group, a large company known worldwide. Yuki loved sports and food, but hated school. In fact, she was the worst-ranked student in her grade at St. President's Academy.

The last student in the room was Hakushika Noriko, the Literature Club president. Her long black hair was held up out of her black eyes in a bun as she put down a white Go piece in her game against Seishiro. Her father was a famous artist, and her mother came from a wealthy tea family. Noriko loved to read, but hated men, becoming fearfully strong if touched by one without her permission.

All six wore the school uniform, the boys wearing a blue blazer with red trim and matching pants. Miroku wore his unbuttoned with a white tank top and a silver chain necklace while Seishiro and Bidou wore there's over a white tux shirt, Seishiro's properly buttoned though Bidou had his top three buttons unfastened. The girls all wore a cream-colored knee-length skirt and a white blazer with blue sleeve cuffs and collar, as well as a bright red bow. The blazer had several big black buttons on the left side. Karen had on black nylons and high heels, Yuki wore bright green knee-high socks and tennis shoes, and Noriko wore white nylons and simple black heels.

"I'm so bored," Shochikubai Miroku sighed.

Noriko nodded. "Yes, it has been awhile since anything interesting has happened around here."

"Why is school always so boring?" Bidou asked as he tossed his mirror into the middle of the table. He crossed his arms on the table, resting his head on top of his arms as he closed his eyes. "It makes me want to go home and sleep."

The door to the council room swung open, interrupting the conversation. The school's principal and vice principal waltzed in, the latter holding three pure white envelopes in his left hand.

"Kizakura, Kenbishi, Hakushika, you've received letters from the Teen of Japan. It seems like you've been invited to be contestants this year!" the principal announced with a large grin on his face. "It has been several years since anyone from our school has been a contestant, so make sure that one of you wins for the pride of the school!"

The three girls blinked in unison. "The Teen of Japan? Isn't that the weird contest that happens every three years?" Karen asked, tilting her head to the side curiously.

Noriko nodded. "Yeah, it judges a girl's fashion, intelligence, and economic skills. It's a highly exclusive competition, as the panel is incredibly selective when choosing its competitors and the only other way to enter is to be endorsed by a past winner," she said as she laid down another white Go stone.

Seishiro frowned, considering his next move for a few moments before placing down his stone. "But weren't the competitors for that contest chosen a few weeks ago? Why are they just now getting their invites?" he asked in confusion.

"Well, yes," the school principal said, "but several girls suddenly withdrew from the competition, saying that they'd been threatened that if they didn't drop out their university offers would be withdrawn. So, a few slots open and you three have been invited take their places."

That instantly got the six teen's attention, dropping what they were doing and turning to look at the principal, who they'd been only half acknowledging until then.

"You're telling them to enter a competition that you know is dangerous? What kind of principal are you?" Bidou asked in amazement.

The man fidgeted as he rushed to explain. "Well, you guys are the Yukan Club! You always solve everything! We thought you'd be able to figure out what's up and save the day like always!"

"Yes, that's exactly right!" the vice principal added. "We have to save this competition; it's being sponsored by the Domyouji Group and Kenbishi Group and hosted by the F4! We have the Kenbishi heir at this school! If it doesn't go well then it will reflect badly on St. President's Academy!"

"Hmm, it could be fun," Yuki smiled.

Noriko nodded. "Yes, I agree!"

"I'm not sure…" Karen said, "I'm not very good at economics you know!"

The Student Body President smiled. "There will be rich guys watching the competition, and it's aired on national television."

Karen instantly cheered up. "In that case, I'm in!"

"Me too!" Bidou announced dreamily. "Lots and lots of phone numbers…" he trailed off dreamily as four of his friends looked at him with exasperated smiles. The five then turned to their sixth member, who hadn't spoken since before the principal and vice principal entered the room.

"Well, Miroku?" they asked.

The tall boy shrugged. "Sure, why not, it's something to do," he said, reaching up and twirling the sucker in his mouth.

"Thank you, Yukan Club!" the two men cheered as they rushed out of the club room.

Miroku sighed, standing up and walking his guitar over to its stand on the right side of the room. "Seishiro, where should we start? We might as well get this over with, the faster we start the sooner we can stop being bored."

Seishiro looked up from the Go bored, putting his right hand up to his mouth to think. "Hmm, well the Teen of Japan is being hosted by the F4, so if we could figure out whom they are; talking to them should be our first step. They would probably have more information on the participants than anyone else," he said.

"Well then, how do we find the F4?" Noriko asked. Her childhood friend and martial arts expert shrugged. "No idea. Miroku?"

Miroku pulled his sucker out of his mouth. "What, you think I know?"

"Well, no, but none of us know, either." Miroku sighed, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.

"Hmm, who should I call?" he asked himself quietly. "Oh, I know!" He scrolled through his contacts for a moment before pausing on the name Sanjo Sakurako.

"Hi, Sakurako? It's Miroku. You go to Eitoku, right?" He waited for a response, and then continued. "Do you know who the F4 are?" Instantly he jerked his cell phone away from his face, as a high pitched woman's voice could be heard coming out of the phone, the words non-distinguishable.

"Wow, that girl is loud!" Yuki said, getting up from the table and running to hid over in the alcove by the wall-height window Seishiro and Noriko still sat in front of. The other four nodded in agreement.

She quieted down a minute later, and Miroku put the phone back up to his face. "All right, thanks for the information. Talk to you later." He shut the phone and turned to look at his friends, putting his sucker back in his mouth. "The F4 stand for Flower Four, and it's made up of Domyouji Tsukasa, Hanazawa Rui, Nishikado Sojiro, and Mimasaka Akira. They're third years at Eitoku University, and apparently just as popular there as we are here," Miroku informed them. "Seishiro, what do you think we should do next?"

Seishiro placed another Go stone before holding his hand up to his chin in his 'thinking pose' for the second time that morning. "Eitoku University? Hmm, that school's on the same level as St. President's, interesting. Well, I guess we should go talk to this Flower Four and see if they have any additional information for us. We may as well head over there now, it's not like we're going to class anyways."

Half an hour later the group arrived at the gates of Eitoku's campus. "This school is a lot bigger than ours," Yuki commented. "I wonder if they have good food! I'm hungry!"

Noriko rolled her eyes. "Yuki, you're always hungry. And in any case, we didn't come here for food, we came for information."

"Yes, we need to find the F4, Yuki, not food!" Bidou joined in. "Let's go!" The six walked through the gates, then began to walk in six different directions.

Seishiro stopped. "You guys! Where are you going?" The other five stopped in their steps.

"That's a good question," Miroku shrugged. "I was just walking in a random direction until I found someone to talk to."

"Same here!" Seishiro, Noriko, Karen, and Bidou laughed.

"Yuki, what about you?" the Police Commissioner's son asked his food-obsessed friend.

"The cafeteria!" she chirped energetically. Miroku sighed, pulling a new sucker out of his pocket, then unwrapping it and sticking it into his mouth.

Seishiro smiled. "That's as good place to start, actually. It's about lunch time, so there should be people in the cafeteria. We just need to find it first."

"Let's try that way!" Karen suggested, pointing off to the far left corner of the campus.

"Sure," Bidou shrugged. The two began to head off to the second-largest building on campus, Miroku, Noriko, and Seishiro following.

Yuki stomped her foot in frustration. "No, it's this way!" she yelled at them, pointing to the largest building on campus to the far right. Her five friends stopped once more.

"How do you know that?" the Student Body President asked curiously.

"I can smell the food! It's coming from that direction!"

"Well, you're probably right, since it considers food. Yuki, lead the way!" The six walked across campus and entered the large glass double doors.

Inside the school cafeteria, the F4 and Makino Tsukuchi could be found up on the balcony overlooking the rest of the building. This area, called the F4 lounge, was only available to the Flower Four and their friends.

Domyouji Tsukasa, the leader of the group, was a tall man with black curly hair and black eyes. He wore a white tux shirt and an unbuttoned long black trench coat over designer blue jeans and black boots. A plate of rare steak and rice sat at the round table in front of him. He'd recently taken over the Domyouji Group, a major financial company worldwide, and was also the leader of the Flower Four.

Across from him sat his fiancé, Makino Tsukuchi. She was a petite girl with long, straight black hair and black eyes. She wore her school uniform, a fancy red blazer over a white tux shirt and a black tie. Her skirt was checkered red, white, and black, and she wore a pair of black ankle boots. She ate a homemade bento in an antique wooden box with a crack in one corner. Makino came from a severely poor family, to the point that for a time they'd lived off of seaweed alone.

At the table next to them sat Hanazawa Rui, his chair turned away from the table towards Domyouji and Makino with his legs crossed. He wore a white long-sleeved shirt, a white trench coat, a pair of white jeans, and white boots, accenting his soft, light-brown hair that framed his face and deep brown eyes. He was the heir to a large company, but as no one know what exactly the corporation did, he was viewed as the most mysterious member of the F4.

Nishikado Soujiro, a tall man with dark brown hair that was neck-length in the back and chin length in the back and deep brown eyes, stood. He wore a navy blue tux shirt under a black fancy jacket and blue jeans that covered the top of his black loafers. His family company dealt in the tea business, both selling tea and tea ceremony products as well as hosting those ceremonies nation wide.

Next to him, a man with shaggy brown hair and matching eyes sat on the edge of a third round table. He wore a simple black tux shirt over blue jeans. He was Mimasaka Akira, the heir of one of Japan's five yakuza families.

When the cafeteria suddenly silenced, the five stood up and walked over to the railing to investigate. At the entrance they saw six people, three boys and three girls, standing in a straight line in a high school uniform that obviously came from a very wealthy school, based on the quality of the fabrics.

"Who are they?" Makino asked her friends.

Rui frowned, leaning over the railing and folding his hands together. "I'm not sure, Makino, I've never seen them before, and I don't recognize the uniform, either."

"I don't either," Soujiro said, crossing his arms in front of him. "And what are high school students doing here, anyways?"

The group didn't have time to respond, as a boy with chin-length black hair standing in a manner that screamed that he could fight in the center of the group spoke up. "We're looking for the…" he began before he was interrupted by a high-pitched female squeal.

"Miroku! What are you doing here?" Sanjo Sakurako, a tall girl with curly brown hair wearing the same uniform as Makino, asked. She leapt onto a boy with shaggy dark black hair with a sucker in his mouth.

The boy hugged her before stepping back, reaching up and pulling the sucker out of his mouth, revealing it's electric blue color. "I called you this morning, remember? We're looking for the F4, and you freaked out when you found out I'd never heard of them before."

Sakurako tilted her head to the side. "That's true. But still, what are you doing here? You should be in school!"

"Why would I be in school?" the boy asked.

"School is boring!" the other five joined in so that the group was speaking in unison.

The Eitoku girl sighed. "You still complain about being bored all the time? Don't you ever do anything fun?"

"Yes! A few months ago I was kidnapped, that was pretty exciting!" a girl with short black hair chirped.

"You call that fun? Wasn't that scary?" Sakurako asked in a confused tone.

The other girl smiled. "Nope! When they tried to kidnap me the first time I beat them up, but when I found out what they were trying to do I volunteered! So it wasn't scary at all!"

"Why on earth would you volunteer to be kidnapped? That doesn't make much sense!"

Miroku smiled, sticking his sucker back in his mouth. "Sakurako, Yuki doesn't do much that makes sense at all, you just have to go with the flow. So, F4?"

"That would be us," Rui spoke up from the balcony. "What do you need?"

"That would be something we'd like to discuss in private, if you don't mind," the boy who'd tried to talk before being interrupted by Sakurako told him.

Rui smiled. "That would be fine, where would you like to talk?"

"If you don't mind, we'd like to talk in our clubroom back at school. It's not like we go to class anyways, but if we stay away from campus too long the principal will threaten to expel us again and that just ruins whatever little amount of fun we were having." Rui turned to look at the rest of the F4 and Makino.

"What do you guys think?"

Akira shrugged. "Sure, we've all finished classes for the day anyways." The rest nodded in agreement, and Rui turned back to the six strangers.

"That's fine, lead the way." The five Eitoku students left the balcony and walked over to six, who led them out of the school cafeteria and across campus to the gates, where a black limo and an expensive motorcycle were parked. Miroku walked over the motorcycle and climbed on, fastening his black helmet.

"Meet you guys back at school!" he waved as he tossed his sucker stick into a nearby trashcan before taking off. Seishiro led the others to the limousine, where all ten students climbed in and sat down, Seishiro and Noriko behind the driver, Bidou, Karen, and Yuki on the other end, Rui, Makino, and Domyouji on the left side, and Akira and Soujiro on the right side.

Seishiro smiled at the Flower Four. "I should probably introduce us, I'm Kikumasamune Seishiro, and this is Hakushika Noriko," he said, motioning towards himself and then Noriko. "The others are Bidou Granmarie, Kenbishi Yuri, and Kizakura Karen. Our friend who left on his motorcycle is Shochikubai Miroku. It's nice to meet you. Sorry to show up out of the blue like that, but we really need to talk to you about something."

"What do you need to talk to us about? You still haven't explained that to us."

"Yes, well, we'll get to that, but I'd prefer to wait until we get to the club room at school. I don't want to start with Miroku, as we'll probably end up needing his cell phone, as usual."

Karen laughed. "Not that his cell phone would do us any good without Miroku, Seishiro. That thing makes no sense to me."

The tall boy with black curly hair snorted. "What's so confusing about a cell phane?" he asked, laughing. His friends just looked at him in exasperation.

"I think you mean cell phone, Tsukasa," the boy on the other side of the girl sitting next to him spoke up. "In any case, I'm Hanazawa Rui, and this idiot is Domyouji Tsukasa. This is Makino Tsukuchi, Nishikado Soujiro, and Mimasaka Akira. It's nice to meet you as well, and I'm looking forward into finding out what you want to talk to us about." Rui smiled, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes.

"What school do you guys go to?" Akira asked as he crossed his legs, looking towards Seishiro as he appeared to be the spokesperson, if not leader, of the group.

"We're third years at St. President's Academy on the other side of the city. We're the student government, though the school usually calls us the Yukan Club."

"Yukan? As in leisure? How'd you get named that" Seishiro nodded.

"Yes, that's right. We never really go to class, so someone made up the name as a joke our first year and it stuck."

"Isn't it insulting though? They're basically calling you lazy," Soujiro asked curiously.

Yuki grinned. "No, not really! It's faster than student body government, and it sounds cooler! Seishiro, are we almost to school yet? I'm hungry!"

The president sighed. "Yes, Yuki, we'll be there soon. And we'll be arriving during lunch, too, so we can eat when we get to the clubroom."

"Yay! Food!" The Yukan Club laughed as the F4 looked at the energetic girl oddly.

Domyouji turned to his fiancé. "Thank god you aren't like this commoner, Makino, or I'd never have dated you." However, Domyouji, being Domyouji, failed in speaking quietly, so the entire limo could hear his comment. Seishiro laughed.

"I wouldn't call Yuki a commoner if I was you, Domyouji Tsukasa. I do believe you are the head of Domyouji Group, correct?" Domyouji nodded. "Yuki's father is the leader of the Kenbishi Group. She's supposed to inherit the company after she gets a business degree."

"But can Yuki get a business degree? She is ranked last in our grade, Seishiro," Noriko commented in her usual soft-sounding voice.

Yuki jumped out of her seat, rushing towards the front of the limo. She reached over to pounce on Noriko, but Seishiro managed to jump out of his seat and catch the Athletic Club president before she could accomplish her goal.

"Yuki! Stop, she's just telling the truth, calm down! There's no reason to attack Noriko!" he tried to sooth her. "She didn't mean anything by it, you know that!" The girl sighed, slouching down in Seishiro's arms for a minute before pulling away.

"Sorry," she mumbled, moving back to her seat. "Oh, hey look! We're at school!" The limousine had just pulled up in front of a large castle-like building with about a hundred teenagers standing or sitting around on the large grounds and the two circular staircases, one on the left and one on the right. The students all looked up as the limo came to a stop and Miroku pulled up on his motorcycle next to them.

"Miroku-sama!" a large number of girls and guys both screamed excitedly, waving hello furiously. "Konnichiwa!"

"Konnichiwa!" he smiled, pulling out another sucker. He turned towards the limo, where the F4 climbed out first, walking over and joining Miroku next to his motorcycle.

"Who are they?" the students of St. President's Academy whispered to each other, gazing at the newcomers. They didn't worry about it for too long, however, as Bidou had just climbed out of the limo. A group of about ten girls jumped up and rushed down the stairs to the blonde haired boy.

"Bidou-sama! Bidou-sama! We love you!" they all screamed at the quarter Swedish teen excitedly. Bidou smiled.

"Thank you, ladies," he said as they circled around him. "Is that a new hair clip? I love it! I love your smile, don't ever stop! I love the way you carry yourself, it never fails to brighten my day!" The girls turned to each other and squealed as he broke away and headed to the F4 and Miroku and Karen exited the limousine. The girls ran away as a group of boys rushed to take their place.

"Karen-sama! Karen-sama! Please accept my token of love!" a boy with short black hair begged, holding out a love letter as he kneeled on the ground on one knee. The rest of the group did the same behind him, all holding out bright colored envelops.

"Thank you," Karen smiled with a small smile. "Will I see you later?"

"Yes!" the boys all yelled as they took their letters and ran back to their friends with large grins on their faces.

Makino turned to look at Domyouji. "Now why couldn't you have been like that in high school?" she asked, her arms crossed in front of her body crossly.

"What do you mean?" he asked, "I was perfect in high school!"

"I mean when people confessed to you. You always just tossed the stuff back at them, at least these people smile and thank them. They apparently don't accept the stuff, but at least the people confessing seem happy," she scolded.

Domyouji frowned. "Why would I accept anything? I have you!" Rui, Akira, and Soujiro laughed.

"Makino, I think that's a bit above his understanding," Akira laughed. Domyouji looked as if he was about to protest, but Yuki had just excited the limo, and a large crowd of screaming girls drowned out the sound of his voice.

"Yuki-sama! Yuki-sama! Are you hungry? Here's food!" the girls asked in loud voices. Yuki grinned, grabbing a basket of fruit out of the nearest girl's hands.

"Thank you," she said, "I'm starving! Make sure to bring me the rest later, okay?"

"Yes, Yuki-sama!" The girls walked away and Yuki joined the rest of the group by Miroku's motorcycle as Noriko climbed out of limousine. This time the group was made of up boys, and they ran towards her holding out white envelopes with love letters inside.

"Noriko-sama, please accept these!" they begged. Noriko's eyes widened in fear and she rushed back into the limousine, running out the other side.

"No, stay away from me!" she begged as she ran over and hid behind Miroku. "Miroku, keep them away from me! They're scary!"

Miroku laughed, twirling his sucker. "You'll have a better change if you bring her the envelops calmly later," the electronic junky told the group of boys nonchalantly. The group stopped running towards Norkiko.

"Good idea!" they chirped before heading back towards the school, whispering to each other furiously.

Noriko sighed in relief. "Thanks, Miroku, they were scaring me," she smiled at her friend.

"Noriko's fear of men is quite fierce," Seishiro smiled as he exited the black vehicle. As soon as he was in sight, another group of boys rushed towards Seishiro with more white envelops.

"Please join my club!" they all begged, holding out their arms offering the club applications. "Please?"

Seishiro smiled. "Give them to me later and I'll consider, okay?" He left the group and headed over to Miroku's motorcycle, where all eleven where now gathered. "Shall we head to the club room now?" he asked.

The group all walked up the spiraled staircase to the right, the Yukan Club waving at their fans as they passed.

"You guys seem to be as popular here as we are at Eitoku," Soujiro commented as they entered the castle-like building.

Seishiro nodded. "It's not that surprising, really. People tend to look up to people who have more wealth than they do, especially at these high class schools. It doesn't help that St. President's is quite a bit smaller than Eitoku. There's only ninety-nine students in each grade here."

"Then there's less than three hundred students enrolled here?" Rui asked. "That's less than just one grade at Eitoku."

"Yes, but it means the school is a lot closer to each other, I think I know the names of every student here," the Student Body President said. "Oh, turn here." He turned left into a small hallway that had one step before a large wooden door. There was a small black sign with gold lettering spelling "Yukan Club" hanging on a thin gold chain above a wooden sign that said "Student Government" in carved letters. He opened the door, revealing the Student Government room, also known as the Yukan Club's club room. The main part of the room was circular, with a hexagon table in the center with a chair on each side. To the left was a large rectangular table against the wall covered in random odds and ends. Several guitars and an amp were situated nearby and in the corner. The walls were covered in red scroll hangings with gold designs. On the far wall was an alcove with the back wall made of glass. In front of it was a step with a Go board in the center, a cushion on the right and left sides. To the left of the main room was a step down into a half-circle shaped room. There was another table in the center of that room, this one a low coffee table with a black couch in front of it and a few matching arm chairs on the other side. The Yukan Club motioned the Flower Four and Makino to seats at the hexagonal table, while they themselves stood nearby, Miroku grabbing his acoustic guitar and sitting down at the last open seat. He quietly began to strum on the strings before he sensed eyes staring at him. He looked up to see all ten young adults watching him.

"W...w…what?" he asked, stuttering over his words as he often did.

Seishiro sighed. "We're having a meeting, Miroku, put your guitar down, okay?" Miroku pouted before taking his hands off the strings.

"Fine," he sighed.

"Good, now that we're all paying attention, we can actually start. You're hosting the Teen of Japan contest this year, right?" Seishiro asked the Eitoku students. Rui nodded, and the martial arts expert continued. "Karen, Yuki, and Noriko were just invited to take the places of the girls who withdrew after being threatened, so we wanted to find out what you know about the situation."

"Why do you want to know that?" Soujiro asked curiously.

"We want to figure out who's behind it, that's all."

Akira tilted his head. "Why do you want to do that?"

"We're bored," Miroku said, shrugging his shoulders.

The five Eitoku students stared at him in shock. "Seriously? You want to dive into a dangerous situation because you're bored? That's not very smart," Rui commented.

"Let us worry about that, we've done this before, we know what we're doing. So, what do you know?" Seishiro replied.

Soujiro frowned. "Not much, actually. All we know is that the girl's withdrew after they were told their university offers would be withdrawn if they entered."

"What universities are they planning on entering?" Noriko questioned.

"Actually, I don't know, we never asked."

Karen smiled. "Then we'll just have to figure it out ourselves, we just need a computer."

Seishiro frowned. "But we don't have a computer in here for some strange reason."

"A computer? No problem," Miroku smiled. He got up and put his guitar away, then grabbed a strange metal object out of his backpack. Sitting back down and putting his backpack at his feet, he opened the metal contraption, revealing a screen on one end a mess of wires on the other.

"What is he doing?" Akira asked as they watched the sucker-loving teen fiddle with the wires for several minutes.

Yuki grinned. "Knowing Miroku, making a computer."

"Bingo," Miroku said, looking up. He grabbed a piece of metal out of his backpack, then screwed it in over the wires. "Tada, finished." He pressed a button on the metal sheet, and the contraption instantly came to life, the screen lighting up to a start up screen and the metal sheet lit up with outlined lettered keys.

The Flower 4 plus Makino stared. "How did you manage to do that? That's more technological advanced than the best computer on the market right now!" Akira said in shock, pointing at the homemade laptop computer.

Miroku shrugged. "It's not that hard, really. Ok, now let's see, Teen of Japan, Teen of Japan… Oh, here we go. The students who withdrew are Taue Megumi, who was heading to Todou University, Doi Sakura, who is entering Todou University, and Naitou Aoi, who is… entering Todou University. It looks like we have our link."

"Todou University, why would someone there be threatening future students to stay out of the competition? It doesn't make much sense," Rui commented, crossing his legs elegantly.

Seishiro frowned. "No, it doesn't. It would help if we knew who in the University is threatening the girls, just the name of the school doesn't help much."

"How do we figure that out, though? It's not like we can just go up to the school and start asking questions, that would get us no where," Akira said. Miroku sighed, taking his cell phone out of his pocket for the second time that day.

"I guess it's up to me again," he said nonchalantly as he scrolled through his contacts for a few seconds before pressing the call button. "Hello, it's me, I need some information. Ah, Todou University and the Teen of Japan competition, I need to know the link between the two. Hmm, okay, thanks, call me if you find anything." He hung up, then selected another number, telling whoever had answered the phone pretty much the same thing as he'd told the first person. After his fourth phone call, he laid his phone down on the table.

Domyouji smirked. "No luck finding anything? I'm not surprised, can't expect some high school student to figure out who's behind something like-" Miroku's cell phone began to ring, interrupting Domyouji's rant.

"Moshi moshi?" Miroku asked, picking up his phone and bringing it to his ear. "Oh, really? Hmm, that's interesting. I see, thanks. All right, let me know if anything changes. Ja." He hung up his phone, looking up at the others. "One of Todou's admissions officers, Rin Yuuta, is apparently associated with one of the yakuza gangs. However, it appears that this group is inside one of the other ones and has actually gone rogue, but they're hiding it from the main heads. They want to destroy Japan's economy by going after the F4, as that would mean four of the most influential families in Japan are without a male heir. The Teen of Japan is the easiest way to get to you. They're trying to sabotaging the competition to give both the Domyouji and Kenbishi families a bad name at the same time in hopes it would drop the stock prices," he explained.

Akira frowned. "Do you know which yakuza group this gang is hiding out in?" he asked.

"No, they've hidden themselves pretty well."

Soujiro turned to his friend. "Akira, are you able to call a meeting of the five yakuza leaders? We may be able to get them to help us investigate this. Even the yakuza doesn't want the Japanese economy to fail, so they should be willing to help."

"No, unfortunately I don't have that power."

Miroku sighed. "I've had to use my cell phone more times today than I have in the last month," he said in annoyance as he once again picked up his cell phone. "Let's see, the first clan is the Mimasaka Clan, so that would be Mimasaka Hiroto…"

Akira blinked. "Hey, that's my dad!" Miroku looked at him.

"Oh, really? Then you can make that call." The older boy began pulling out his cell phone before suddenly pausing.

"Wait a minute, how do you know my dad?"

"Well, he was a friend of a friend of a friend's wife of a friend, we met a few years ago and I'm pretty sure he technically owes me a favor for reason or another," Miroku shrugged. "So, you going to call him or do I have to?"

"I'll do it."

"Cool, that's one less phone call for me. Now, who's next… The Kuroda clan, so I need to call Yamaguchi Kumiko."

"Yamaguchi Kumiko? Isn't she the heir of that clan?"

Miroku looked up. "Yeah, that's right."

"How'd you manage to get to know her? I've been trying for years."

The high school boy shrugged. "She was my cousin's high school homeroom teacher a few years ago." He pressed call, and held his phone up to his ear. "Hello, Yankumi? Hi, this is Yabuki's cousin Shochikubai Miroku, and I needed to ask you a favor. We've uncovered evidence that there's a group hiding in one of the yakuza clans trying to crash the country's economy, and I was hoping you or your grandfather or Shin would be willing to meet with my friends and I as well as the other clan leaders to try and figure out where and who they are." A pause. "Really? That's great; I'll text you with the time and place in an hour or so. Thanks! Tell Shin hello for me. Ja."

He hung up the phone and turned to look at Akira. "You going to call?"

Akira nodded. "Yeah, sorry, I got distracted by your last name. Shochikubai… is your father Shochikubai Tokimune, the police commissioner?" Miroku nodded, and Akira blinked in shock. "How the hell do you have links in the mafia when your father is the head of the entire police force of Japan?"

Miroku shrugged. "Actually, that's how I've met a lot of my contacts. I meet a lot of people Dad's investigating and I just end up making friends with them. They're normally really good people." Akira shook his head in disbelief as both he and Miroku began to make their phone calls.

Ten minutes later, both Miroku and Akira had hung up their cell phones, and a meeting between the five clans and the eleven young adults was scheduled for the next day. Miroku went and grabbed his guitar again as everyone began to have small private conversations amongst themselves, getting to know the people they were likely to see a lot of in the next few weeks. Miroku began to strum on his guitar before beginning to sing quietly.

"Ai nante kotoba kusugutta kute, narashite yameta yofuke no denwa! Tomodachi no mama itsuka itta kedo, kokoro wa ugokidashiteita," he sang, holding out the last note on a high octave commonly unreachable to people of the male gender. Akira looked up from his conversation with Soujiro, and his eyes widened as he caught sight of the Police commissioner's son singing, eyes closed. He stood up and walked around the table to Miroku, coming to a stop behind his chair as he sang the last few lines of the first verse. "Aenai yoru ga gueru tabi, chikaku naru hohoemi ga mune wo tsutsumu!

"Arifureta iikata kamo shirenai, mta kimi wo nakasu kamoshrenai! Dakedo kawarazu mamoritsuzukero you, yes, two of us, yes we can fall in love! Ooh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, please, please only true romance," Miroku sang the next verse half in English. Akira smiled, impressed by the boy's pronunciation as he reached out and grabbed hold of the back of Miroku's chair, which went unnoticed to Miroku, as he was leaning forward in his chair. The older boy closed his eyes as he tried to place the song that sounded hauntingly familiar to him for a reason he couldn't quite place.

The tempo of Miroku's guitar began to pick up, and Akira's eyes widened as he finally placed the song, smirking as Miroku began to sing the bridge of the song a bit louder than he'd been singing the rest of the song. "When we're turning in the wind,' he sang."

Akira joined, singing the background line, "get together." Miroku's eyes widened in shock, but didn't' let it faze him, instead concentrating on finishing the song.

"Let's get it on, get it on!" He sang, once more reaching the higher octaves.

The two began to sing the next verse of the song together, Akira singing an octave lower than Miroku. "Arifureta iikata ka mo shrenai, mata kimi wo nakasu ka mo shirenai. Dakedo kawarazu mamaoritsukudero you, yes two of us, yes we can fall in love."

Soujiro, who'd turned to talk to Karen and Bidou when Akira left his seat a minute earlier, looked up as he heard his friend's voice joining the quiet music in the background.

"What is it?" Karen asked softly so as to not interrupt the two young adult's singing.

"Akira's singing, he doesn't do that very often, saying that it's something he doesn't to just share with anyone. It's odd that he's singing with someone he only just met today." Karen smiled.

"Miroku tends to have that effect on people, why do you think he knows so many people? I swear, we can't go out anywhere without running into at least one person Miroku is friends with that we've never seen before, so it's not surprising that Akira-san is opening up to Miroku,"

Soujiro shrugged. "Maybe, he commented as he watched Miroku and Akira finish the song together.

"Aoku kagayaku kino hoshi ni umare, botachi wa deai koko ni iro you. Sou kitto umaku wa ienai kedo, Yes I love you, uso ja nai sa. Ooh yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, please, please only true romance, I'm loving you. "Ooh yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, please, please only true romance, I'm loving you."

"You're a good singer, Miroku-kun," Akira said with a smile. Miroku blushed.

"Th…th…th… tha…thanks," he stuttered, "y…y…you too." The younger boy looked down at his guitar nervously, strumming randomly on his guitar to distract himself from the boy staring down at him from above.

Akira reached his hand down, running his hands through Miroku's hair. "So, you're the boy who used to sing at battle of the bands contests with KAT-TUN, interesting." Miroku looked up, surprised.

"H….h…h…..h…how…"

"Come on, just say it!" the college student teased.

"How… did…you…know," Miroku said slowly to stop himself from stuttering.

"I used to go to the contests with my cousin and I ended up buying one of the KAT-TUN demo albums, how do you think I knew the lyrics to the song you just sang? Kimi wo omou toki!"

Miroku shrugged, blushing once again. "I didn't really think about it," he admitted bashfully, causing the other boy to laugh lightly.

"Silly," Akira said, bringing his hand to a stop in Miroku's hair. The younger boy made a low moan of disappointment, and Akira's smile grew larger, resuming the soft motion of his hand. "Like that do you?" Akira asked, leaning down and whispering in his ear softly. Miroku blushed again.

"Shut up," he mumbled.

"But I don't want to, silly, I…" He was cut off by Bidou standing up and going over to open the door. Instantly about two dozen girls and boys rushed into the room, calling out the names of the Yukan Club member they were there for.

Several of the students, both male and female, crowded around Miroku. "Shochikubai-sama, we love you!" the group squealed as one, all holding out packages and envelops of various sizes and colors.

"Thank you," Miroku smiled. He reached out and accepted the gifts one by one, placing them on the table one-by-one. "I'll make sure to open them as soon as I have time." He didn't notice Akira frowning behind him, his arms crossed in front of his body. As soon as the students left he reached down and turned Miroku's chair so that he faced the older boy.

"What was that?" he demanded.

Miroku blinked. "What was what?"

"Why did you let them faun over you like that? There's no reason for it!"

"If we don't give them time like that, they'll bother us all day every day. We'd rather deal with it only when we get to school and ten minutes at lunch time, that way we can have some peace the rest of the day," Miroku explained. Akira just continued to glare. "W….w….w….what? What did I do to make you mad at me? It doesn't make sense!" Miroku reached into his pocket and pulled out another sucker, this one red, then un-wrapped it. He began to bring it up to his mouth only for Akira to snatch it away. "Hey! Why are you being mean to me all of a sudden?" Akira shrugged, popping Miroku's sucker in his mouth.

"I'm going to head home, Dad wanted to go over details for the meeting tomorrow in person," he announced, walking out of the room. Miroku turned to the rest of the Flower Four and Makino.

"What did I do?" Soujiro shrugged.

"With Akira, who knows," he said, causing Miroku to sigh as he pulled out another red sucker.

"Whatever," he said to himself quietly, "I'm not dealing with him."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two  
Preparations for a Meeting

The next day, all eleven of the Yukan Club and Flower Four members met up at a small café near the warehouse where the meeting would be held a few hours later. The group sat around one large table, with Miroku closest to the center of the café with Yuki to the left, followed by Soujiro, Seishiro, Noriko, Karen, Akira directly across from Miroku, then Rui, Makino, Domyouji, and Bidou to the electronic junkie's right. The café was decorated in a modern style, with black floors, cream walls, glass tables, and silver accessories scattered across the bar near the back wall and hanging on the walls. A large Picasso-style mosaic hung on the right wall, the left wall and the near wall with the door sported large windows looking into the street directly in front and to the left of the café. That day was a day for jeans, with almost the entire group wearing pairs in various colors. Soujiro wore a pair of casual jeans, though of designer making, as he never seemed to wear anything but, and a black dress shirt unbuttoned over a white tank top. Over the past few years he'd worn suits more often than not, but chose to take advantage over the rare day of no work and wear semi-casual instead of semi-formal clothing.

Rui wore a pair of black jeans with a white long-sleeved shirt under a long white trench coat with a fur collar, an outfit that he wore quite frequently – although that could be because he always wore mostly white and eventually all of the white blended together until it seemed he wore the same thing almost every day.

Akira was decked out in black jeans, as well, a black-button up shirt and a black blazer; much like Rui, his closet had one overbearing color, only instead of white Akira wore a lot of black.

Domyouji's jeans were a dark navy blue, offset by his white tank-top and bright red trench coat, the same one he'd worn when trying to win Makino back over during the forced engagement fiasco with Shigure a couple of years before.

Makino, as usual, simply wore a casual outfit of a ragged pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, this one midnight blue with white letters on it, an English saying she couldn't actually read.

The Yukan Club's technical genius, Miroku, came dressed in his usual unique style, a pair of baggy black jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt under his leather jacket. He had a small earring in his left ear, a small silver ring on his left pinky finger, and a silver necklace with a long silver charm around his neck.

Next to him sat Bidou, wearing a white button-up silk shirt with the top buttons undone, the collar upturned over the top of his fancy black blazer and black jeans. A large silver cross necklace hung around his neck.

Noriko wore a white button-up coat with a square-cut neckline, four large black buttons forming a square on the chest and a wide collar that covered the top of her shoulders. A string of pearls stood out against the black turtle neck she wore under the coat. She also wore a black skirt, which was no surprise, as the girl's friends had never seen her wear any form of pants.

Karen showed off her favorite color in an elegant, low-cut hot pink peasant-type shirt with flowing sleeves and a white collar. She also wore a pair of black, tight-fitting shorts and black flats.

Seishiro, as usual, wore a blazer, this one a soft gray. His tux shirt was white, with a gray tie that matched the rest of his outfit. To make his formal top more casual, he wore simple pair of perfectly clean white jeans.

Yuri didn't quite fit in with the elegant styles of the Flower Four, Bidou, Noriko, and Seishiro, fitting in with Miroku better with her funky style. She wore a long-sleeved black shirt with white lacing up the sleeves. Over this she wore a bulky down-filled red vest, only zipped halfway up. The hood was furred, like Rui's coat, and she wore fingerless black gloves on her hands, a pair of black boots, and a pair of jeans with grass stains on the knees.

"How do we want to do this? Do we want everyone to come or just a few people?" Seishiro began the discussion.

Soujiro leaned forward, his arms folded on top of the table. "Well, Miroku and Akira have to go; they're the ones that put this thing together. But should the rest of us even go? It may be better if we just sent those two and have the rest of us wait here."

Yuki pouted, looking up from her slice of cheesecake. "Why? I want to go!"

Seishiro sighed. "Yuki, we don't want to get in the way! This meeting is going to be tense to start off with, we're talking about a bunch of yakuza guys from five different clans in the same room. This could get ugly, and we don't want to make it worse by coming off too strong. I agree with Soujiro, Miroku and Akira should be the only ones to go."

"That would be a good idea," an unknown woman's voice said from the table next to them. The group looked over and saw a woman of medium height with long black hair and dark brown eyes sitting at the table behind Miroku, sitting backwards in her chair and wearing a red jersey.

"Who are you?" most of the group said in unison.

"Yankumi! You're early!" Miroku smiled at the same time.

The other ten looked at Miroku, surprised expressions on all their faces. "You know her?" Seishiro asked, surprised.

Miroku "Mmm," he said, nodding his head 'yes'. "This is Yamaguchi Kumiko, the heiress to the Kuroda Clan," he introduced.

"What? You're the one going to take over the Kuroda Clan?" Akira asked in shock, voicing the thought running through all of their minds.

Yankumi smiled. "No, actually, my husband is. I'm a teacher, leading the clan doesn't interest me."

"You're grandfather is actually giving you a choice? That's unusual," Akira said enviously. "My father never gave me a choice."

"What do you mean?" the teacher asked.

"I'm the heir to the Mimasaka Clan," he explained, "and I've never really been given a choice about taking over, it's just something I've always known I'd have to do."

"Do you want to do that?"

Akira frowned. "Not really, I don't really fancy running from police all the time. I'm planning on slowly turning all the operations into legal ones as soon as I take over."

Yankumi smiled. "If that's what you want to do, then I think you should do it! Fight-o, oh!" she said cheerfully. The rest of the group stared at her, an awkward pausing taking over the conversation.

"So, Yankumi, you didn't answer me, why are you here?" Miroku asked.

"Ah, that reminds me, you called me to this meeting and school starts in half an hour. I need someone to take over my class."

Miroku stared at her. "What do you want me to do about it?" he asked around his always-present sucker.

"Find someone to take over, obviously. My class is a bunch of delinquents, I can't leave them unattended!" Miroku sighed, turning to the others.

"If they're anything like my cousin's class was, she's right. Any ideas?"

"I'll go," Soujiro offered, "I should be able to keep them in line."

Seishiro smiled. "Alright, and we'll send Yuki with you."

Yuki once again looked up from her plate. "Why me?" she whined.

"That way you'll be out of the way," her intellectual friend told her. "If you were here you would just end up barging into the meeting and we can't have that."

"Fine," the girl pouted, "I'll go with Soujiro."

Yankumi smiled at the group. "Thanks, you guys. Just a warning, it's an all-boys school, Yuki, so they may go out of their way to impress you. Speaking of which, shouldn't most of you guys be in school?"

Miroku shrugged. "This is more important, Yankumi!" The high-school teacher sighed, agreeing reluctantly.

"Yes, you're probably right. Soujiro-kun, Yuki-chan, here's the directions, its Akadou Academy and class 3-D. They're in the building covered in graffiti, you can't miss it," she told the two, handing over a piece of paper with directions to the school written on it. "My cell phone number is written on that, too, call me if you need anything. So, Miroku, I'll see you in a few hours, okay? I have to head back home and brief Shin about everything." She stood up and left the café, waving her goodbye's as she went.

"She's a very interesting woman," Seishiro commented once Yankumi was out of the group's sight. Miroku nodded.

"Yes, she is. She tends to end up teaching classes full of delinquents on the verge of getting kicked out of school, and every time she ends getting them to graduate. The year she taught my cousin the entire class wound up being beaten up because they refused to defend themselves simply because they'd promised her they wouldn't fight until after graduation."

Domyouji snorted. "That's pretty stupid of them," he rolled his eyes, "if you just allow yourself to be beaten up you'll just end up more injured than you would have been if you fought back."

"Hmm, that may be so, Tsukasa, but think about it, that teacher got a bunch of trouble makers who probably fought pretty regularly before she became their teacher to stop fighting to the point that they wouldn't protect themselves just because they had promised her they wouldn't. That's pretty impressive," Rui commented.

Miroku nodded around his sucker. "Yeah, all of her former students love her. Actually, she's married to the class leader of the first class she ever taught now."

"She married one of her students? Isn't that illegal?" Yuki asked.

"Yeah, but she didn't start dating him until a year after he graduated, so they never broke any laws. Shin's actually pretty cool, I've met him several times. Akira, you'll probably meet him later, if Yankumi goes to a yakuza meeting he goes too, without fail." Akira shrugged vaguely, causing Miroku to frown. "What did I ever do to you?" Miroku asked himself quietly, "I don't remember doing anything to offend you."

Bidou, sitting to the right of him, shrugged his shoulders, leaning his head on Miroku's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Miroku! Everything will work out ok, you'll see!" he said cheerfully.

"Don't worry about what? What'll work out ok?" Yuki asked loudly from Miroku's other side, causing the entire table to look over at the three.

"Miroku? Is something wrong?" Seishiro asked.

Miroku blushed, slouching down in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. "No, everything's fine. So, how long do we have until the meeting starts?"

"About an hour and a half," his friend said, glancing at his watch. "When do you want to head over to the warehouse? It may be a good idea to get there a bit early."

"I'll head over in half an hour then; that gives me sixty minutes to make sure no one planted any bugs or anything in the warehouse, as well as check for unwanted visitors. Mimasaka-san, is that alright with you?"

Akira blinked, looking up. "Mimasaka? I thought we agreed to call each other by our given names yesterday, why'd he switch back to family names?" he mumbled to himself, inaudible to the rest of the table. He simply nodded to Miroku before leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes. Much to his disappointment, however, he was only able to relax for a few brief moments before a tap on his shoulder made him jump in surprise. He looked up, surprised to see Seishiro standing behind him. "What is it, Seishiro?" he asked.

"Can I talk to you outside?" the younger boy asked, motioning towards the café entrance with his right hand. Akira sighed and nodded, getting up and following him out of the café, both sitting down on a wooden bench against the side of the building, out of the way of the busy Tokyo foot traffic.

"What did you want to talk to me about, Seishiro?" Akira asked curiously as he turned his body to the right to face the young genius.

Seishiro frowned. "What are your intentions towards Miroku?"

Akira blinked. "I don't understand, what do you mean what my intentions are?"

"Do you like him? Because yesterday you were flirting with him like crazy and then all of a sudden as soon as our fan clubs came into the club room you got really harsh and since then you haven't even said a word to him. What's with you?"

"Yes, I like him," Akira sighed, running his hand through his hair anxiously, "I just can't figure out why. I mean I fell in love with his music when I saw the band he was in a few years ago perform at a music festival, but Miroku himself? I've been a player since high school, I don't understand why I'm so fascinated by Miroku all of a sudden, it completely goes against my character," he explained.

"Well figure it out, because all ignoring Miroku does is hurt him, and I'm sick and tired of seeing him fall for someone only for them to wind up hurting him!" Seishiro glared at the older boy. "Miroku is a very giving person, he'll do anything he can to make his friends happy, and he'll sacrifice even himself if he has to. So when he falls for someone, he gives absolutely everything he has, and I'm not sure how many more times he can do that before he loses everything that makes him the Miroku we all love!"

Akira turned to face Seishiro completely. "What do you mean, hurt? He's been hurt before? Why did it? Tell me!" he demanded.

"Why should I tell you that?" Seishiro asked.

"So I can protect Miroku, that's why! Is it so wrong for me to want to protect the one I think I may be in love with?" The two both fell silent, shocked at Akira's revelation. "Wait, I love Miroku? Where did that come from?" Akira asked himself aloud.

Seishiro smiled. "It doesn't really matter where it comes from, as long as the emotions are real. Do you think they are real?" Akira hesitated, and then nodded.

"Yeah, I think I do…" he said, rubbing his hands through his hair.

"Good. Then my next problem with you is why you're ignoring him. What did Miroku do to cause you to flat out ignore him like you've been doing?"

"He let those… fans at your school faun over him! How could he do that! Didn't I make it clear I was interested in him? He's mine; no one else is allowed to touch him!"

Soujiro laughed lightly. "None of us actually like any of them, you know, but giving them time was decided as our best option. You see, our freshman year we were voted as the freshman class reps of our respective classes, and we all became friends through that. Before that, I'd been friends with Noriko, and Yuki and Miroku, as well as Karen and Bidou were already friends, but our three groups merged into one through the student government. It didn't take long for our entire grade to fall in love with one of us, and they began treating us like celebrities. It got to the point that we couldn't do go anywhere without being hounded for gifts and requests to go out on dates. That's when we began spending our day in the student government room, because we couldn't get peace even when we were in class. We had peace for a couple of weeks, but once someone figured out where we spent our day people started skipping class to come see us. So, we decided to set a rule that we'd only acknowledge our fans when we got to school and for ten minutes at lunch time. That way, we spend most of the day in peace, and the entire school doesn't get interrupted by them. The principal and vice principal constantly threaten us with expulsion for not going to class, but they never carry through with it, because they know how we got to that point, and in a way I think they feel guilty for not being able to put a stop to al the fuss over us in the beginning.

"So, really, Miroku didn't mean to make you mad, he just did what we always do to keep the fans happy. They're a lot easier to deal with when they're happy, so we play along. Please don't blame Miroku for keeping a routine. Oh, and a piece of advice, Miroku will probably like to be called yours once you're officially together, but I wouldn't say that when he could hear then. If he hears you saying that when you aren't actually together he'll just feel like an object to be owned and he won't take that laying down, okay? Don't kill any chance of a relationship before it can even begin, Miroku falls fast, but once he's been betrayed even if he still has feelings for you he won't go back, he doesn't forgive easily. Okay?" Akira nodded, and Seishiro smiled at the older boy before standing up. "Let's head back inside, shall we?"

Inside, Miroku watched as his friend left with the boy that had been his biggest frustration since the day before. "What's up with that?" he asked himself quietly.

"Miroku, do you like him? You act like you do!" Yuki chirped in his ear, an enormous grin on her face. Miroku scowled.

"Yuki, mind your own business, will you? Finish your cake," he ordered, pushing her off of his shoulder harshly. The energetic girl pouted.

"I don't want to, Mi-ro-ku! You've been acting weird since yesterday, so I want to know the truth!"

The teen rolled his eyes. "It's none of your business, Yuki. Even if I did like him, he doesn't like me. If you haven't noticed, he's been ignoring me since yesterday for some stupid reason."

Rui looked at the younger boy with a smile. "I wouldn't worry about that too much, Miroku-kun," he said, "Akira used to be a huge player, and he's only changed in the last year or so. He probably is only ignoring you because he doesn't know how to act with someone he doesn't want to play around with, or something similar. Even when he's mad at someone he doesn't ignore them, so I can't think of any other reason he'd act as out of character as he has been the last few days. Don't worry, okay? It'll all work out in the end!"

Miroku nodded hesitantly, twirling his sucker. "So, Akira used to be a player? Sounds like someone else I know," he commented, gesturing towards his friend sitting next to him.

"Hey," Bidou pouted, "I'm not a player!"

"Oh, really? What's the definition of a player?"

"Um, does it mean someone who dates more than one person at once?" Bidou answered slowly, tilting his head as if trying to find the answer.

Miroku nodded. "Exactly, and how many girlfriends do you have?"

"None, I don't have an official girlfriend."

"Really? How many do you regularly go out on dates with?"

Bidou began counting on his fingers. "Hmm, there are Katherine, and Sarah, and Mariko… about nine, I think. I may have missed a few here or there."

"That means you're a player, Bidou, there's no getting out of it!" Miroku said bluntly.

The blonde boy pouted as the rest of the table laughed.

"What's so funny?" Seishiro asked as he and Akira approached the table.

Karen smiled. "Miroku was teasing Bidou about his player tendencies," she told the student government president.

"Again? Sorry I missed it! Oh, Yuki, it's time you and Soujiro leave, you're due at Akadou Academy in fifteen minutes." Yuki and Soujiro stood up and grabbed their things.

"Where do you guys want to meet up after the school day ends?" Soujiro asked the rest of the group.

Seishiro frowned. "Hmm, we normally just hang out at someone's house if we hang out after school at all, so I can't really think of any good place to go. Do any of you guys have an idea?" he asked the others.

"We have a club house type thing we had built during high school that we still hang out, we could go there," Soujiro suggested.

"Yeah, that works, how do we get there?" He gave them quick directions, then left the café with Yuki, the two of them waving as they exited the building.

"Why don't we all break up as well and meet back here in an hour? The meeting doesn't start for another ninety minutes and waiting around here that long just to wait around some more during the meeting sounds like a pretty boring day," Noriko suggested.

Karen smiled. "Yes, let's do that, I really don't want to be more bored than I have to."

"Agreed," Miroku, Bidou, and Seishiro chorused.

Domyouji laughed. "What's with you guys and being board? You can't be board, that's a piece of wood!" The eight other members of the large group stared. "What? Is there something on my face?"

Rui sighed. "Not board, Domyouji, bored. They are two different words that just sound the same but have entirely different meanings." Domyouji tilted his head to the side.

"Huh? That makes no sense!" he protested. "There's no way!"

Makino sighed. "Domyouji, you're such an idiot," she mumbled to herself. Said boy reached over and hit her lightly over the head.

"Don't call your fiancé an idiot, its rude!" Makino pushed his hand away with a scowl.

"Then don't say stupid things, idiot," she told him as she rolled her eyes. Rui laughed at the two.

"Those two never change, do they, Akira?" The boy shook his head.

"No, they don't. Anyways, we'd all better get moving so we have some free time before the meeting starts. The group agreed, and slowly trickled out of the café in groups of two and three, heading off to find some source of entertainment that wouldn't take over sixty minutes somewhere near the small café.

Rui and Akira headed over to a nearby bar and went over to an empty pool table in the back corner, setting up to play a game. "So, Akira, what's going on with you and Miroku?"

Akira sighed, rolling his eyes. "What's with everyone asking me about that today?" he mumbled, reaching down and aiming at the white cue ball, beginning the game.

Rui shrugged. "I wouldn't know," he replied, taking his turn and sending a striped ball into the back left pocket of the pool table.

"That wasn't an actual question, Rui that was a… what's the word, it's the type of question you use when you don't actually expect an answer?" Akira said, leaning on his cue stick as he tried to figure out the word that was on the tip of his tongue.

"You mean a rhetorical question?"

"Yeah, that's it. It was a rhetorical question."

Rui smiled. "Well, mine wasn't, so what's up with you and Miroku?"

Akira frowned, waiting to take his turn before replying. "I like him, that's what, isn't it obvious?"

"Yeah, I kind of figured, but you started ignoring him all of a sudden. I had a feeling you were just jealous of all the fans at St. President's Academy falling all over him, but I wasn't sure when you started ignoring him. That isn't your style, Akira; you typically make it very clear when you're upset with someone for some reason."

Akira sighed. "It hurt when I saw him just letting them faun over him like that, and it surprised me, you know? I've always been a player, the one doing the dumping that comes from no where, I wasn't prepared to feel like I'd suddenly been dumped like that, and I didn't know how to handle that," Akira tried to explain, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

"That makes sense," Rui smiled at his friend. "Are you going to talk to Miroku and try to straighten everything out?" When Akira didn't answer for several long moments the Hanazawa heir sighed. "Akira, just talk to him, Miroku probably doesn't understand why you're ignoring him, and that's not going to help you win him over."

"I know, Seishiro already lectured me about that earlier."

"Then why'd you hesitate?" Akira shrugged. "I don't know how to deal with guys; I'm used to dealing with girls. Speaking of which, why aren't any of you surprised that I suddenly like a guy? It's not like I've ever even flirted with a guy before, shouldn't you guys be at least a little shocked?" he asked, tilting his head to the side and looking at his friend curiously.

Rui shrugged. "Not really, Soujiro and I known you were by since freshman year of high school and Tsukasa… well, you know how he is, we supported him with Makino, so even if he did have a problem he would never say anything. And as for Makino, well, she's just an accepting person all around," he explained. The other boy smiled.

"Thanks, Rui," he said, "but freshman year? I didn't even know then, how could you tell?"

"Easy, Akira, you tended to glance at guy's backsides as they walked by." Akira blushed.

"I did? I never noticed…" he said bashfully, then quickly changed the subject. "So, shall we continue our game?"

Nearby, Miroku sighed as he walked down the road, looking for something to do to occupy his time. "What to do, what to do…" he mumbled to himself quietly. "Oh, yeah, don't Shuji, Akira, and Nobuta live near here? Which road was their apartment on again?" He pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts quickly, selecting one labeled 'Akira!'.

The phone rang twice before someone picked up. "Miroku! You called!" a male voice chirped energetically.

"Hey, Akira, what's up?" Miroku smiled.

"Not much, just hanging out with Shuji and Nobuta in our apartment, why?"

"Want to come hang out with me? I have to waste time for an hour before I have a meeting and everyone else went off in their own directions without me. I'd walk Otokoyama but he's on the other side of the city."

"Sure! We'll see you in ten minutes!" Akira said, the tone of his voice clearly indicating that he sported a large grin on his face. "Shu-u-ji-kun! Nobuta! We're meeting Miroku! Let's go!" Miroku could hear his friend yelling in the background before the phone call disconnected, causing him to roll his eyes.

"Akira, you don't know where to meet me, silly," he laughed. "Five, four, three, two, one, zero." As Miroku finished counting down, his cell phone rang. "Yes, Akira?" he asked, not even looking at the caller ID.

"Hey, where do you want to meet up?" the older boy asked sheepishly.

Miroku laughed. "Why don't you meet me at the usual arcade?" he suggested.

"Sure, see you in a bit!" The boy once again hung up, and Miroku slipped his cell phone back into his pocket before heading over to the arcade a street over. When he arrived, he was greeted by the sight of three people standing near the entrance. One was a tall boy with short brown hair and deep brown eyes, wearing a pair of loose jeans, a red t-shirt, and a rain jacket. Next to him stood another boy of about the same height, this boy's dark brown hair was a lot longer than the first, going down almost to his shoulder blades in several layers and almost covering his dark eyes. He wore dark jeans and a thick fur-lined black jacket, a white scarf around his neck. On this boy's other side stood a girl about a foot shorter than the two boys. Her black hair framed her face delicately, her almost-black eyes gazing at the ground in front of her, a soft smile on her face. She wore a black, loose knee-length skirt and a matching dress shirt under a white blazer.

"Miroku!" the first boy screamed excitedly, rushing forward and jerking said boy into a hug.

"Hey, Akira, nice to see you, too," the police commissioner's son said with a smile, then looked over to the other two. "You too, Shuji, Nobuta, it's good to see you! Akira, you can let go now."

The boy pouted. "Fine," he said mournfully as he let go. The four entered the arcade, Akira bouncing up and down as he waved his arms as if they were wings. "Ooh! Rockband! Let's play!" he said pleadingly, turning around to face the other three with his hands held up in front of him pressed together as if he were praying. "Please?"

Shuji sighed. "We'd better agree or we'll never hear the end of it," he whispered to Miroku, who nodded in agreement. "Alright, Akira, we'll play, but remember we only have forty-five minutes or so."

"That's okay!" the hyper-active college freshman cheered, bouncing back and grabbing his friends wrists, pulling them towards the small stage off to the side with Rockband set up for people to play. Miroku followed, rolling his eyes. "I'm going to play drums! Miroku and Shuji, you two both sing and play guitar, and Nobuta, you play base guitar. Okay?" The three went along with Akira's demands, knowing it was easier to just go along with his desires than to protest.

"What are we going to play?" Miroku asked curiously. Akira tilted his head to the side.

"Hmm, good question. Ooh, I know!" Akira selected a song, and their game began. By the end of the song, a crowd of about twenty people stood around the stage, watching and listening to the four perform a song called 'Butterfly,' a long rock duet with lots of style changes.

"Wow, they're good!" someone in the crowd whispered.

"Play another one! Play another one!" another person begged.

The four obeyed, playing several songs before Miroku glanced down at his watch. "Sorry, everyone, I've got to go, I'm running late for an appointment. Thanks for listening!" he waved at the crowd, then put away the guitar and jumped off the stage.

"Hey, Miroku, wait up!" Akira hollered, "We want to come too!"

"If you say so," he shrugged, waiting for the three to catch up before leaving the arcade.

"So, Karen, what do you want to do?" Bidou asked as the two exited the café.

The girl shrugged. "Hmm, good question. Want to go tan ourselves in the park? If we have an hour to kill we might as well make it worthwhile," she suggested, tossing her hair behind her elegantly.

"Ok, that works for me! A tan would do lovely for my complexion," he said dreamily, pulling out a small compact mirror as they walked down the road to a nearby park.

Karen smiled. "And mine as well. A nice sunbath sounds lovely." A few minutes later the two entered the park and walked over to a sunny patch of grass. "Oh, wait," Karen said, "we can't lie on the grass! It'll stain our clothing!"

"Good point," Bidou sighed, "now what will we do?"

"Wait here, there's a store across the road that sells beach towels. I'll go buy a few. What color do you want?"

"I think I want a red one, made of Egyptian cotton with white roses!"

"Alright, I'll be back in a bit!"

Ten minutes later, time that Bidou spent sending several of his non-girlfriends flirtatious text messages, Karen returned with the two towels, Bidou's as he requested with a pure white one for herself.

"Here we go, Bidou! Let's sunbathe! We have forty minutes!" The two lay out their towels and lay down on top of them, soaking up the sun's rays peacefully.

After parting from the rest of the group at the café, Domyouji and Makino began walking down the road, Domyouji holding Makino's hand tightly in his own.

"Makino, what do you want to do?" he asked his fiancé.

"How about we go window shopping?" Makino suggested. "There are a lot of shops around here, so it'll be fun!"

Domyouji frowned. "Why go window shopping when we can actually shop and buy things? That sounds boring! Makino, what do you want? I'll buy you something."

"But I don't need anything, Domyouji! Why do you always insist on buying me things? I don't need a lot of material objects like you do, remember? I'm poor!"

"You are not; you're going to be my wife! My wife will never be poor!"

"What do you mean your wife will never be poor? We're getting married and I am poor, you idiot!" she glared at her oblivious fiancé, her arms crossed in front of her body in rage.

Domyouji glared back. "I have money! When we're married half of that money technically belongs to you, remember? You're the idiot!"

Makino sighed. "Whatever, Domyouji, I don't want to argue with you. Let's just walk around, okay? We don't have that much time to actually do anything, you know. It's already been fifteen minutes."

"Fine, since you insist, I guess you can show me another 'commoner's date.' Lead the way!"

"Soujiro-kun, are we almost to the school? You won't let me run so I'm getting bored," Yuki asked for the tenth time in five minutes. Soujiro sighed in annoyance.

"Almost, Yuki, it's up this street a bit and then over one. We'll be there in five minutes," he told her yet again. "Now, while we're watching Yamaguchi-sensei's class, make sure you don't cause problems, okay? We don't want to cause her any more trouble than we already have by making her miss school for the meeting today."

The girl sighed. "Yeah, yeah, I won't, I promise. I never cause problems, I swear! Oh hey look, there's the school! Let's go!" Yuki ran ahead over to a building to the left side of the private high school's campus, every inch of the building covered in graffiti of every type imaginable.

"Yuki! Wait up!" the college student yelled at his companion, "it's better if we enter together! This is a class of boys, you know, and apparently they're all trouble makers!" The girl stopped in her tracks.

"True," she stated, waiting for Soujiro to catch up. The two then entered the building together, following the loud yelling of almost thirty high school boys. The class members were all doing their own thing, talking to each other loudly to hear each other over the noise, which, naturally, just made it worse. Their entrance went unnoticed for several minutes before Yuki noticed a heavy-set boy in the center of the room. On his desk lay several bags of potato chips, their delicious sent carrying over the always-hungry girl in the front of the classroom.

"Ooh! Food!" she squealed, rushing over and stealing a bag of potato chips. She tore it open and began eating enthusiastically, the boy staring at her in horror.

"Hey! That's mine!" he yelled, "give me back my chips!" He failed to notice a boy with short brown hair with orange streaks wearing the school uniform over a baggy t-shirt sneak up and begin stealing from an opened bag that had yet to be touched. Another boy came up next to him, this one with long blonde hair with sky blue streaks. The second boy yanked the bag of chips out of the first boy's hands, grinning evilly. The first pouted and stole an unopened bag. They stood there, eating their chips happily as the owner of the chips and Yuki continued to argue over the bag she'd stolen.

As this happened, the rest of the class freaked out over the girl's presence.

"Hey, what's a girl doing here?" a boy with black hair and dark blue streaks in his hair asked.

"No idea," said another random student on the other side of the room, this one holding a rugby ball.

A boy in the back of the room with blonde streaks in his chin-length black hair stood up. "Who cares, it's a girl!" he said with a large grin on his face. Soujiro, standing at the front of the room, sighed in annoyance.

"This is not how I want to spend my day," he mumbled to himself.

"What are you two doing here?" a quiet voice asked. Soujiro looked up to see that a boy with long light brown hair that had been sitting next to the boy with blonde streaks in his hair standing in front of him.

Soujiro smiled weakly. "Yamaguchi-sensei is away on other business matters today, so she asked us to take over for her today. She doesn't trust a substitute, and I can see why, this class is crazy."

The boy nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. But it's entertaining, at least," he commented. As he spoke, the boy with orange streaks in his hair walked over to the boy with blonde streaks in his hair and poked him in the shoulder.

"Ren!" he said in a loud voice that went ignored by the rest of the class.

"What, puppy-chan?" he asked, turning around to face the shorter boy.

"You're a leader of this class, right? Act like it!" 'Puppy-chan' demanded.

"Huh?" the boy with blonde streaks, now known as Ren, asked, clearly confused.

Puppy-chan pointed over towards Soujiro and the boy talking to him. "Get your ass over there and deal with the newcomer with Yamato!" Ren sighed and obeyed, heading over to Soujiro and the boy known as Yamato.

"What's up?" he asked the two.

Yamato shrugged. "Asking why they're here, apparently they're Yankumi's subs."

"I see. What's with the girl? And why is she wearing a high school uniform if she's supposed to be in charge of the class?" he asked.

Soujiro smiled. "She's a senior at St. President's Academy," he told the two high school students, who looked at him with shocked expressions on their faces.

"That rich school? Are you serious? What the heck does Yankumi have to do with them?" Ren questioned.

Soujiro winced, not able to give a straight answer; it wasn't like he could just tell them their teacher was a yakuza clan's heiress- that would be a fast way to get her fired from her job. "You'd have to ask her that, it's one of Yuki's friends that knows Yamaguchi, I just met Yuki over there yesterday, and Yamaguchi this morning."

Yamato and Ren looked at each other and rolled their eyes. It was clear to Soujiro that the two somehow not surprised by Yankumi's random replacement selection, and from what he'd seen of the woman earlier that morning, he guessed that they'd long given up trying to understand their hyper-active, monologue-loving homeroom teacher.

"I see. Well, have fun dealing with us, even Yankumi can't control us," Yamato warned their college-student replacement teacher.

Ren smiled. "Well, most of the time, anyways," he corrected. They were interrupted by the fight between Yuki and the potato chip owner growing even louder.

"Give me my chips back, damn you! I want my food!" the boy hollered at the top of his lungs, then reached forward and shoved at the petite but athletic girl. Yuki stumbled, but quickly regained her footing, then shoved the desk into the boy's gut.

"What? You want your food? You have eight bags! You can't give up one? You're so selfish!" she yelled back. The two boys that had been stealing food from behind the food lover's back looked at each other, then hurriedly put their belongings away and moved to the side of the room to avoid the fight.

Ren turned to Soujiro. "Is she always like that?"

He sighed. "From what I know of her, yes. She seems to be obsessed with food and is a good fighter," he told the younger boy.

"Really? Well she shouldn't mess with him, he is also crazy about food. If she doesn't offer to buy him more soon it's gonna get ugly," Yamato commented, clearly bored but also worried about the possible directions the disagreement could go. It didn't take longer than a few seconds for his worries to come true, as the fight between Yuki and the boy suddenly became a full-fledged fight involving the entire class except for Yamato, Ren, and the two small boys with streaks in their hair on the side of the room. The two class leaders began to head into the brawl to try and break it up, but the latter two boys stopped them, the one with sky blue streaks running over and clinging to Yamato in apparent fear. The boy with yellow streaks in his hair tried to pull his friend away from the leader, but without success.

Soujiro sighed, realizing that it was up to him to try stop the mass brawl. He walked into the center, dodging rogue punches and kicks all the while until he got to Yuki. He grabbed the girl and pulled her back to the front of the classroom, reaching into his book bag on the floor next to the podium and pulling out a sandwich, handing it to the energetic girl. He was about to go and try to break up the rest of the fight, but the two class leaders had finally managed to get away from the two petite boys and moved to stop the fight before the older boy could.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing? The person you're fighting isn't even in the fight anymore!" Ren yelled at his classmates. The entire class instantly froze in their spots. The food-loving boy, however, turned towards Yuki, still protesting the loss of his food.

"Enough, Okuma, just get some more food and suck it up," Yamato ordered the boy, who pouted.

"Fine," he said reluctantly, going back to his desk and pulling several more bags of chips out of his backpack.

"Guys, just leave the girl alone and just go back to whatever you were doing, will ya? It's not like she's an alien or something," Ren then told the rest of the class, seeing them turn their attention from fighting to the girl, clearly about to go crazy over the girl, seeing as they were in an all boys school and being close up to a high school girl was quite a rarity.

Yamato smirked. "Idiots. Ren, you were doing it too," he told his friend and fellow leader, who looked offended.

"Oh, shut up," he scowled. He and Yamato then left the front of the room, going over and beginning to place their desks back into their proper place from where they'd been moved during the mass fight. The rest of the class followed, and everything slowly went back to normal. Well, Soujiro and Yuki had to assume it was normal for class 3-D, because it certainly wasn't a typical high school class.

After several minutes of relative (but loud) peace, Yuki turned to her companion. "Soujiro, shouldn't we be actually teaching something? This is class, after all," she asked.

Said boy couldn't help but laugh at the oblivious girl. "What do you know about class, Yuki? From what I hear, you guys don't even go. At least _these _guys actually show up to school," he teased.

"We go to school! Just not to class…" Yuki protested weakly. Soujiro rolled his eyes.

"Exactly. Let's just let them do whatever."

On the other side of town, Yuki and Soujiro's friends had all arrived back at the café except Miroku. "Where is he?" Seishiro sighed, "he can't be late, he's the entire reason we were able to get this meeting scheduled!" The café door opened, interrupting the boy's rant, and Miroku entered with two boys and a girl that were strangers to the others.

"Miroku! Finally, where have you been?" Bidou pouted. "We've been waiting!"

Miroku shrugged as he popped a yellow sucker into his mouth. "I was playing Rockband with Shuji, Akira, and Nobuta here and we lost track of time."

Bidou turned to Mimasaka Akira. "I thought you said you played pool with Rui-san during our hour break! Did you lie to us for some reason?" he questioned the older boy.

Mimasaka Akira shook his head as Miroku laughed. "Not that Akira, this guy's name is Akira, too!" he said, pointing to Kusano Akira. "I've known him since we were little and he just moved to Tokyo a few months ago for college. He lives a street over so I hung out with him and his roommates at the arcade since you guys were all off doing other things. They're the ones I played Rockband with," he told his friends.

"Ok, but why'd you bring them here? We kind of have important business to take care of, you know," Noriko asked her friend.

Miroku shrugged. "Akira here decided they were tagging along."

"And you didn't protest?" Bidou asked.

"Well, no, you don't know Akira. Trust me; it's a lot easier to just go along with him than protest. He's very…" Miroku trailed off, trying to find a way to describe his slightly (alright, more than slightly) crazy friend.

Shuji jumped in. "Akira is very persistent, and he doesn't let things drop. He can go on and on about something for days, and it's really annoying. If you just go along with him he gets over it and moves on, so it's easier to just let him do what he wants," the boy explained.

"Shu-u-ji-kun, don't be so mean to me! You're going to hurt my feelings!" Kusano Akira pouted, clinging onto his friends shoulders. Shuji shrugged him off, sighing.

"Sorry, Akira," he said in an exasperated tone.

Kusano Akira grinned, jumping up and down. "Yay, Shuji apologized, Nobuta did you hear?" The shy girl with the two boys nodded, still looking at the ground.

"Okay, whatever, but you guys are going to be stuck hanging out with us for awhile, Miroku and Akira have to go to a meeting now," Seishiro told the three.

Kusano Akira frowned in concentration. "We have to go to a meeting?" he turned to Miroku. "Why do we have to go to a meeting? I hate meetings!"

Miroku laughed. "Not you, Akira, that Akira," he said, pointing to Mimasaka Akira. "You guys have the same given name."

"Really? Awesome!" Kusano Akira said with another wide grin on his face, running over to Mimasaka Akira. "Hi, brother!" he said, "it's nice to meet you!"

Mimasaka Akira blinked in confusion. "Brother? How are we brothers? We have the same name, not the same blood."

"Well, in the Dobe Ju/'hoansi culture in Africa we'd be brothers! Your mom would be my mom, and your wife my wife, well unless her name had the same name as my mother, but that's not really relevant right now!"

"Huh?" the other eleven in the group of young adults asked in confusion, followed by a sigh from Shuji.

"Ignore him; he's full of random bits of knowledge. He'd actually be intelligent if he knew how and when to use it," the boy told the rest.

Seishiro smiled. "I can tell. Hey, Miroku, Akira! No, not that Akira, this Akira, it's time for you to go. We'll have a couple of us stationed here until the meeting's over in case things get bad, text us when it's over and we'll all meet up at the clubhouse." The two nodded and left the café with a wave.

"Kon kon, Mi-ro-ku! Ja!" Kusano Akira said, tapping his middle two fingers against his thumb with his index and pinky fingers pointed up so that his hand looked as if a dog was barking.

"Kon kon? What does that mean?" Mimasaka Akira and Miroku heard Bidou ask the door shut behind them.

"Hey, Miroku?" Akira asked once they'd left the café behind.

"Oh, you're talking to me now?"

"Um, yeah, that's what I wanted to talk about. I'm sorry I started ignoring you, I wasn't actually mad at you. I was just jealous." Miroku stopped in his tracks.

"Jealous? What were you jealous about?" Akira stopped too, reaching over and turning Miroku's body gently by the shoulders until they faced each other.

"Yesterday when your fans were all over you giving you gifts and love letters, I just got really jealous of them, and I have a reputation of a player, I wasn't expecting that! I didn't know how to deal with it so I just got so mad I couldn't talk to you," Akira tried to explain.

Miroku blinked. "But why did they make you jealous? I don't get it." The older boy laughed lightly, then leaned down and kissed the younger boy on the cheek softly.

"Does that explain it?" Akira asked. Miroku blushed furiously as Akira grabbed his hand in his as the two entered the warehouse.


	3. Chapter 3

Yukan Club and the Flower Four

Chapter 3  
Meeting with the Yakuza

Thirty minutes after Miroku and Akira entered the warehouse and set up a low table with cushions for everyone to sit on a tall balding man whose small amount of black hair and short beard and mustache was quickly turning gray. He wore a gray kimono, and smiled at the sight of his young friend. "Ah, Miroku, it's so good to see you! Have you reconsidered my offer to take over for the Shirafuji Association?" he asked. Behind him stood two henchmen in black suits, and all three bowed at the high school student as they waited for a response.

Miroku shook his head. "Sorry, Oyaa-san, but I'm pretty busy as a high school student, I really don't have time for such a large commitment."

The elderly man smiled kindly. "I see, well if you ever change your mind just let me know. Who is this young man?" he asked, gesturing towards Akira, who stood behind and slightly to the right of Miroku.

"Ah, this is Mimasaka Akira, he's my…" Miroku drifted off, not quite sure how to describe his relationship with the older boy.

Akira grinned, seizing the opportunity. "I'm his boyfriend," he bowed politely to Shirafuji Goro, "I am honored to meet you."

The leader of the Shirafuji yakuza clan looked at Miroku with a surprised look at his face. "Well, I wasn't expecting that, Miroku, but congradulations! I wish you much happiness." He then turned to Akira. "Mimasaka, did you say? Any relation to Mimasaka Hiroto?"

Akira nodded. "Yes, he's my father, actually," he replied.

"He's a good man," Goro commented, "a bit stern, but he knows how to give respect and honor when it's deserved. It's an honor to meet you. I assume the table is where we're all going to sit?" Miroku nodded, and he went and chose a cushion to sit on, his henchman grabbing cushions from a pile in the corner and sitting behind their leader.

Yamaguchi entered a few minutes later with a tall boy with long black hair with blonde highlights in his bangs standing next to her. He wore black jeans and a red t-shirt under a black blazer, and he stood hunched over, his eyes semi glazed over sleepily.

"Hello, Yankumi, Shin," Miroku smiled at the two.

"Hi, Miroku, are we early?" Yamaguchi asked politely. Miroku nodded as the young man named Shin looked at the high school student.

"Yo, Miroku, what's up?" Miroku shrugged.

"Not much. How's the marriage life doing for you two?" Yamaguchi blushed as Shin smiled.

"Good, thanks. We're going to sit down now, I'm tired, talk to you later." Shin and Yamaguchi (who's last name was technically Sawada, but she rarely went by it as she was keeping her married life private from her employers) walked over and sat near Goro, talking to the man they'd met once or twice before quietly.

The next person to enter the warehouse was a man of about forty years of age wearing an expensive black suit, impeccably ironed. He smiled at the two boys as soon as they were in sight affectionately. "Miroku, how have you been? You're graduating in the spring, am I correct?" Miroku nodded. "Congratulations, your parents must be proud of you." He then turned to Akira. "My son, I haven't seen you in awhile since our schedules clash so much right now, how have you been?

Akira smiled at his dad. "I've been well, Father. Would we be able to meet sometime soon? I would like to talk to you about something." Mimasaka Hiroto nodded, pulling out his cell phone to look at his calendar.

"Does tomorrow at seven thirty in my office at home work for you?" Akira nodded.

"Yes, that will do, thank you, Father." Hiroto nodded with a smile before going over to join Goro and the Sawada couple.

Not long after two men, who appeared to be about twenty-five years old, entered together, identical twins with chin-length black hair and deep brown, almost black eyes. Their outfits matched, jeans and a black dress shirt, but the twin on the left wore a black trench coat and the one on the right wore a white one. The man in a white coat stood with his left hand held behind his back. "Hey, Miroku!" they both said with a smile, tilting their heads to the right, holding up a peace sign to the right.

"Yo," he replied. "Did you bring them? I'm running out!" He pushed his hands together gently at the palms, holding them under his chin as if praying. "Please? They're my lifeline!"

The man with a white coat smiled, moving his left hand out from behind his back revealing a plastic bag. "Of course I remembered, Miroku, here you go!" Miroku reached out and took it, a wide grin on his face.

"Yay, thank you, Kurai!"

The man shrugged. "It's no problem, god knows we have enough of those things hanging around and none of us will eat them. Korai, shall we go sit down? The meeting should be starting soon," he said, turning to his brother. The man in a white coat nodded and the two flashed another peace sign at their young friend before joining the other clan representatives at the table.

"What's in the bag, Miroku?" Akira asked.

"My suckers! Kurai and Korai's father runs a sucker factory as one of their cover-up operations and they always end up taking a ton of them home since they don't actually sell all that many of them. They've been my suppliers for a few years now," he replied as he reached into his bag and pulled out a lime green sucker. "Oh, this is a new flavor, lime! Sounds good!" He unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth. "Oh, it is good! Cool! Cherry and banana were getting a bit old, and I ran out of blueberry yesterday."

Akira and a woman began to laugh. The couple turned around to see an elderly woman standing in the warehouse entrance. She stood tall, elegant, and beautiful in a formal black kimono, but gave off the era of a woman to be feared. Her hair was worn into a tall bun, a hint of gray in her black hair.

"Aunt Meiko, how are you?" Miroku asked the woman with a smile, handing Akira his bag of suckers before going over and hugging the woman.

Meiko smiled. "I'm doing well, Miroku, thank you for asking. I hope you're doing well in school?" Miroku nodded, and the woman reached up and ran her fingers through the teen's bangs.

"Good, I don't want to hear about my favorite nephew failing in school, not when I want to ask him to take over my organization when he gets older!" Miroku blushed, looking down at the ground, clearly embarrassed by his aunt's affection. She then turned to Akira. "Hmm, I suppose this is your boyfriend?" she whispered so that the two young men were they only ones in the warehouse could hear.

Miroku looked up, blinking. "How did you know that?" he asked, shocked. Meiko smiled mysteriously.

"A woman has her ways, especially when it concerns her family. Now, what's your name, young man?"

"Mimasaka Akira, ma'am," the college student said with a respectful bow. Meiko returned with a small bow of her own.

"Please take care of my nephew, Mimasaka-kun, I don't want to hear about anyone breaking his heart again, alright?"

"Yes, ma'am, I will." Meiko smiled once more before walking over to join the others, Miroku and Akira following now that all of the five clan heads had arrived. On the left side of the table sat Goro, his two men behind him, with Meiko sitting to his right. At the foot of the table, to Goro's left, sat Yamaguchi and her husband, Sawada Shin. On the right side of the table across from Goro sat Kurai, with Korai right behind him and Hiroto beside him. Miroku and Akira sat at the head of the table, between Meiko and Hiroto.

Miroku leaned forward, clasping his hands together on the table. "Thank you for coming, some information has recently come to light that could affect both all of you and us," he began, motioning towards first the rest of the table, then him and his new sort-of boyfriend.

"What's going on, Miroku?" Goro asked, both curious and worried at the same time.

"Akira here is one of the hosts of the Teen of Japan contest coming up next month, and recently several contestants that have been accepted to Toudo University received threats, warning that they'd be dropped from the college if they entered the tournament."

Meiko sighed. "Miroku, you're my favorite nephew," she began to say.

"More like only nephew," Miroku smiled at the woman.

"But I really don't see what this competition has to do with us," she finished, ignoring Miroku's interruption as if he hadn't said a word.

The boy shrugged, twirling his sucker. "I was getting there. I did some digging, and the guy behind the threats is a guy named Rin Yuuta, an admissions officer for the college, and he's just a grunt worker. All I could find about the people he works for is that they want to crash the economy through the Teen of Japan competition…" Once again Miroku's explanation was interrupted by one of the yakuza clan heads, this one Kurai.

"Crash the economy? How can they do that through a beauty competition for rich high school girls?" Goro asked in confusion.

Shin, who'd been resting his head on his arms on top of the table, sat up reluctantly. "It's pretty simple, actually. That competition is funded by two major corporations, the Domyouji Group and the Kenbishi Group, and stock prices mean everything. If anything happens to threaten the reputation of the company, they drop, and that directly affects the economy. This competition doesn't normally get much attention, but with two major world-wide groups sponsoring it, the heir of one of those companies hosting it, eyes are watching it like a hawk. If it doesn't go well it's very possible for stock prices to begin dropping," he explained.

"But why would stock prices drop just because a pageant the company was funding failed?" Korai asked from his seat behind his twin.

Shin sighed. "People would lose their trust in their company and start selling their shares. It's a competition for high school students, if a company can't get that to run smoothly then people won't be able to trust them with their business."

"It doesn't help that the Kenbishi heir is now in the competition, and it's being hosted not only the Domyouji heir but the Hanazawa heir, the Nishikado heir, and Akira here, the heir to the Mimasaka clan," Miroku added.

Meiko frowned. "Well, that doesn't bode well if these people succeed. Do we know anything else about them? Our organizations can't afford a large-spread economic crash, so I don't think we have any choice but to try and help catch the criminals at work in this situation," she said.

"Yeah, we do, that's another reason we're asking for help. They're hiding in one of our clans," Miroku informed the others.

Yamaguchi frowned. "That's not acceptable, the yakuza clan's stand for loyalty above all else, I will not stand for people who turn on their people like this!" she protested the plotter's actions loudly.

Hiroto nodded. "Yes, I agree with you, Yamaguchi-san… or is it Sawada-san?"

"Either is fine, it's technically Sawada but I can't afford to use it in public much right now," the woman replied.

"Alright, Sawada-san, then, I agree with you totally, we have to find this group and catch them before they can succeed in crashing the economy. Shall we all agree to set our most trusted employees to subtly search the entire organization and meet back up the same time next week?" Akira's father suggested.

"Yes, that would be best. Now, if we find anything, what should we do about it if we find them? Do we talk to them, set a trail on them, or what?" Kurai questioned the group as a whole.

"If you figure it out call me, I can set a trace on them so that they won't notice," Miroku replied. "If they've been able to hide this far so well then they have to know all of the small, intimate details of the group's workings, and if even the slightest thing changes it'll alert them. Quietly searching is fine, they'll probably just assume that your looking for ideal people to fulfill new orders, but if you make any direct actions against someone alarm bells will go off. I have experience doing it, and I won't be noticed since I'm not part of the group and they won't know me, if they even spot me." The group agreed, and Miroku smiled. "Thank you very much, we'll keep digging on our end, as well. If there's anything I need to know immediately please contact me, my cell phone is always on. Is there anything else?" The heads all shook their heads no, and Miroku and Akira stood. "Then we will be taking our leave, take care and we will see you next week. Yankumi, can you please tell Soujiro and Yuki to meet us at the clubhouse if you see them?" The teacher agreed and the two left, walking across the street and entering the café. There, at the same table as they had this morning, sat Bidou and Karen.

"Hey, you guys, is the meeting over?" Karen asked.

"How did it go?" Bidou added.

"Yes, it is, and it went very well, thank you for asking," Akira replied. "We should get going to the clubhouse now."

At Akadou Academy, the school day had ended, and Soujiro and Yuki were heading home. They were walking down Shirokin Avenue when Yuki spotted a small restaurant called Kumai's Ramen.

"Ooh! Ramen! Soujiro, I want Ramen!" the girl begged her companion. The boy sighed, not really wanting to stop, but he had this sinking feeling that if he didn't give the girl what she wanted he'd be hearing it the entire trip to the clubhouse where they were to meet up with their friends in half an hour.

"All right, Yuki, but we can only be here for ten minutes or so, ok?" he asked as they walked to the entrance. Soujiro held open the door, allowing the girl to enter before him.

"Ok! Yay, thanks, Soujiro!" she chirped, entering the restaurant, Soujiro following. "I haven't had ramen in awhile! We aren't technically allowed to eat food that isn't made by the school when we're there, so I don't get to eat food like this normally during school days!"

Soujiro smiled lightly. ""So, Yuki, what do you guys do all day if you don't go to class?" he asked curiously. When he'd been in the Yukan Clubroom the day before he hadn't seen much to occupy Yuki for very long, and he doubted it was much different for her five friends, either.

"Why don't you go class?" a male voice interrupted. Soujiro and Yuki looked up to see Ren, Yamato, and their six friends sitting at a nearby table, the boy with platinum blonde streaks in his hair asking the question.

"It's boring!" Yuki responded cheerfully as she and Soujiro joined the eight boys at their table.

"School isn't meant to be fun, it's meant to learn," Yamaguchi said from the table next to them. The ten young adults all looked at her in shock, as she hadn't been there a minute before.

"Where did you come from?" Ren asked his teacher.

"Don't do that!" another boy joined in, this one with black hair spiked in a manor that clearly took a lot of time to arrange. The two temporary teachers had learned his name was Kuraki Satoru earlier that day.

"How do you do that?" another student, this one named Honjo Kengo, demanded. Yamaguchi just smiled.

"So how was the meeting?" Soujiro questioned the older woman, who shrugged.

"Pretty good, you can get all the info from the others. They said they'll meet you at the clubhouse. Thank you for taking over for me, how were they?"

Soujiro shrugged, really not wanting to get into much detail. He figured she could imagine how it went, anyways, since she dealt with the rowdy class on a daily basis. "Not bad, I guess. Well, we'll be taking off. Nice to meet you," he said, looking at the students he'd spent the day in charge of. He then turned to the girl. "Yuki, let's go!" He pulled her away from her fifth bowl of ramen and they left the restaurant, heading out to meet the rest of their friends at the Flower Four's clubhouse.

An hour later Miroku, Seishiro, Bidou, Yuki, Noriko, Karen, Domyouji, Rui, Akira, Soujiro, and Makino sat inside the clubroom, Miroku's friends Shuji, Akira, and Nobuta having left the group earlier in the day to go do their university homework due the next day. Akira and Miroku had already filled the gang in on everything that had happened in the meeting, and Miroku had asked several contacts to keep an eye on the Toudo University admissions officer. The room was designed so that a table stood to the right and left side of the room, a television to the front of the room, a few couches to the back of the room, with the center of the room left open.

"I'm bored," Yuki complained from where she sat at the table to the right side of the room. Noriko, Seishiro, and Makino all sat at the table with her, Noriko and Seishiro playing a game of Go while Makino was working on homework. Bidou and Karen, who'd been dancing in the center of the room but not in front of the television, stopped and sighed.

"Me, too," the two high school seniors said in unison, boredom obvious by the tones of their voices. Akira, who sat on the couches while playing video games on the television screen with Soujiro, laughed.

"Bored again?" Akira teased the girl. "I don't think I've ever seen you not bored, isn't that a boring way to live?"

Yuki pouted. "Yeah, that's why I always complain I'm bored, I want someone to entertain me."

Soujiro motioned the girl over. "Here, you can take my controller and play against Akira, that should keep Yuki busy, at least," he volunteered.

The girl pouted. "But I don't know how to play!" she protested weakly.

"I'll teach you." Yuki cheered, running across the room and sitting on the couch to Soujiro's left. He handed her the remote, and began to quietly explain the controls as she watched him play a round of the fighting game against Akira. He won the game, and then handed the remote over to Yuki. "Now you try."

Miroku, sitting at the table on the right side of the room fiddling with an electronic gadget of some sort, laughed. "You're never going to get your remote back now, Soujiro-san, Yuki's always been a fighter, and that game is something I'd consider buying her for a present," he told the other boy.

He shrugged. "That's okay, I don't get bored as easily as you guys apparently do," he said with a smile. Miroku turned back to his gadget, glancing at the puzzle Domyouji was putting together across the table as he did so.

"So what's the deal with the clubhouse, anyways? What's wrong with hanging out at someone's house?" he asked the man curiously.

"As we started to take on more responsibilities for our family businesses, we began to be interrupted to sign paperwork and the like more and more frequently when we were at home, and it began to get really difficult to spend time together, especially as most of the time it was for things we didn't have to take care of right away, they just came to us since we were there. Eventually we got sick of it, so we decided it would be nice to have a place away from everything to relax and hang out," he replied as he placed a piece of sun in it's place.

"I see," Miroku commented. The two returned to silence, continuing with their individual projects.

"What are you working on?" Domyouji eventually asked as Yuki won a round against Akira nearby.

Miroku shrugged. "I haven't quite decided yet. It's going to be a controller, but I don't know what I'm going to have it control yet."

"You can make the controller before you make the actual device? Doesn't it normally work the other way around?" Domyouji asked in confusion.

"Kind of; right now I'm just putting it together, I'll have to program it to actually work once I make the other piece," he explained.

"I see."

"Hey, Soujiro, how did the teaching job go, anyways? I forgot to ask," Rui spoke up from his seat between Miroku and Domyouji, putting down the book he'd began to read as soon as the group arrived.

Soujiro winced. "Let's just say it was very interesting, you think Yamaguchi-sensei was weird? Her class was just as bad, let's put it that way," he replied.

"What do you mean, it was fun! I got into a fight with a guy over potato chips!" Yuki spoke up with a large grin on her face.

"Yuki! You were there as a teacher, it was very irresponsible of you to fight with a student!" Noriko scolded the other girl. Yuki just shrugged, and Noriko just sighed, knowing it would do no good to argue with the high spirited girl.

The next day, the group met up in the clubhouse once more after the school day ended, and this time everyone but the Flower Four were wearing their school uniforms. "I got a call last night from a friend," Miroku told the group as soon as everyone had settled down. He sat on the couch next to Akira, while Yuki, Soujiro, Karen, and Bidou sat at the left side table and Makino, Domyouji, Rui, Seishiro, and Noriko sat at the right side table.

"Really? What did they say?" Seishiro asked. "Is it good news or bad news?"

Miroku smiled. "Well, it appears Rin Yuuta is having a party at his house this weekend."

"Ah, so it's good news, then. Shall we break in and look for evidence and clues?" Noriko asked.

"Ah," Miroku agreed.

"Wait a minute, you're going to sneak into Rin Yuuta's party? Isn't that dangerous?" Akira asked worriedly. Miroku shrugged, and the older boy wrapped an arm around his boyfriend's shoulders possessively. "Please don't do this, it isn't safe! I don't think it's possible for you guys to sneak in without being caught!"

Seishiro nodded. "I agree with Akira, you guys, it's not safe for you guys to waltz into danger like that. It's impossible to do safely."

"Making the impossible, possible…" Miroku began.

"Is what the Yukan Club does!" the entire group finished together.

Akira blinked. "Huh?"

"What kind of lousy saying is that?" Domyouji snorted.

"It's our club motto, and it's true, so don't insult it!" Karen protested.

"Besides, we've done this multiple times, and we've only been caught once," Seishiro added.

Akira scowled. "And what happened the one time you were caught?" he asked hesitantly.

"Hmm, well a bomb was planted onto Miroku's motorcycle, after, of course, we were sent a gun as a gift and Miroku fired it thinking it was a toy in the club room," Seishiro said with a shrug.

"Yeah, and it cut my face!" Bidou pouted. "My beloved face!"

Miroku rolled his eyes. "It didn't scar, Bidou, and I apologized a billion times already."

"Yes, yes, and I don't blame you, it's just that it happened!" the blonde boy said with a whine, causing his friends to roll their eyes.

"In any case, Akira, we have to do this, these parties have always proved to be our best source of information. Don't worry, we know what we're doing, and Miroku supplies us with tons of electronic gadgets, it's not like we go bare handed. We keep Miroku safe while he's hacking the computers," Seishiro assured his friend's boyfriend.

Akira frowned. "Then what do the rest of you do?"

"Well, I stay in the van as back up, and the rest mingle with the guests to make sure no one head towards Miroku, and Noriko gets the password out of the suspect if we need her to. She's quite good at getting information out of them without them noticing."

"I don't like Miroku being the one in the most danger, but clearly we aren't going to be able to stop you. So, I want to go, and I won't take no for an answer," Akira said, determination ringing in his voice. He pulled Miroku further into his side so that the younger boy's head was resting on his chest with Akira's arms wrapped tightly around his waist so that he couldn't move.

Miroku sighed. "Fine, but you stay in the van with Seishiro," he mumbled, unwillingly closing his eyes. He found his current position comfortable and peaceful, but he didn't really want to admit it; the relationship with Akira had begun quickly, they'd only met two days before after all, and he didn't want to admit to himself or his friends that he could fall for someone that hard and that fast. It didn't help that Akira always seemed to want to protect Miroku as much as he could, which was a big change for the boy, who'd always been the one to protect his friends in their time of need. He could protect himself. But he couldn't help but admit deep down that it felt nice to be the one protected for a change.

"Fine, as long as I'm there," Akira agreed reluctantly. He wanted to be closer to Miroku so he could protect him better, but he decided not to press his luck; yet, anyways. The next time Miroku and his friends planned something this crazy he was going to be inside that party whether they liked it or not. Miroku simply smiled as he drifted off into sleep.

"Father?" Akira said as he knocked on the man's home office door later that evening.

"Come in," Hiroto replied. Akira opened the door and walked into the office, sitting down in a leather chair in front of the solid oak desk. "You wanted to talk to me?"

Akira nodded. "Yes, that's right. It's about Miroku, actually."

"Shochikubai Miroku? What about him?" Hiroto asked curiously.

"How'd you meet him?"

"Why do you want to know that?"

"Please just answer, I'll explain in a bit," Akira said, folding his hands on his lap to stop himself from fidgeting nervously.

Hiroto frowned. "Actually, he was kidnapped by a member of our organization, a man named Iwakura Satoshi."

"What?" Akira asked in shock, "why?"

"Iwakura's little brother, Iwakura Daisuke, was a member a smaller gang, and he was arrested for robbery by police officer who just so happened to be Miroku's father. Satoshi kidnapped Miroku in hopes that he could do a trade off, Daisuke for Miroku. Don't worry," he hurriedly continued, seeing the alarmed look on his son's face, "Miroku wasn't a hostage for very long. Shochikubai Tokimune called me as soon as Satoshi identified himself to the police to demand Daisuke's return, and I put a stop to it. I ended up keeping an eye on a ten-year-old Miroku for a few hours while his father was driving out to the cabin in the country he'd been held at to pick him up, and we've stayed in contact. Why'd you want to know? And how did you meet Akira, anyways? I don't remember ever introducing the two of you."

"Through the case we talked about yesterday," Akira explained. "So would you say that you like Miroku as a person?"

"Yes," Hiroto agreed but leaving the word hanging, not sure where his son was headed with the conversation.

"Do you like him enough to approve of me marrying him in the future?" Akira asked his father bluntly.

Hiroto blinked. "Come again?"

"I asked if you'd approve of me asking him to marry me sometime in the future," the university student repeated.

"You're dating? How long has this been going on?" Hiroto questioned, shocked by his son's relationship with the boy he'd once rescued from one of his own lackeys.

Akira shrugged. "Since this morning, technically," he replied nonchalantly.

"And the two of you are already considering marriage? Isn't that a bit quick?"

"It's not like I'm going to ask right away, Father, and he doesn't even know I'm considering it. But, you know Miroku, he's an easy person to like, and I don't want to lose him… ever," Akira replied. "So, would you approve?"

Hiroto smiled as he placed his elbows on his desk, folding his hands together and resting his chin on top of them. "When the time comes, yes, I'll approve. I like Miroku, and I've always considered him to be a second son, so I'd be overjoyed to have him as an official member of the family. I only request that the two of you come to me together after you propose so I can congratulate the two of you."

"Thank you, Father, I will make sure to do so," Akira replied, bowing respectfully.

TBC

Sorry it took so long to update, I got really busy with school! Actually, this story almost didn't continue at all... My computer's harddrive crashed and my mom's friend from work got it working temporarily by changing the way it boots up but the fix is temperary... I have to buy a new hard drive and a new operating system, since the recovery drive is corupted... This story was sooo close to being gone for good!


	4. Chapter 4

Yukan Club and the Flower Four

Chapter 4: Invasion

"Miroku, can you hear me?" Akira asked from his seat next to Seishiro in the Yukan Club's laundry cleaner's van three days later.

"Yes, Akira, I can hear you," Miroku replied. He was inside the company ballroom disguised as a bartender as usual, wearing his usual disguise of a semi-formal pair of black slacks and white dress shirt with a black bow tie, a false mustache on his upper lip. He wore a large pair of glasses with black frames so that if someone Miroku knew happened to be at the party it would be harder for them to identify him.

"Good," Akira replied, "we'll let you know when you can move forward."

"Bidou, stop looking at girl's chests and do your job!" Seishiro lectured a few minutes later. The blonde boy, dressed in a very filly black suit, had begun to look down at the chest of the woman he was talking to. She was dressed in a low-cut, short pink dress and matching heals, and she just so happened to be a hooker with only high class clients; she was known as a frequent customer of Rin Yuuta, and the group of young adults hoped that the boy would be able to get information from her without her knowing.

"Yeah, yeah, fine," Bidou said quietly, raising his head to look at the girl's face without making it obvious he'd been staring at her feminine body parts. "So how are you doing tonight, beautiful?" he asked the girl flirtatiously.

She smiled. "I am doing good, thank you," she replied. Bidou took a glass of Champaign from a waiter walking nearby and held it out to the girl.

"Champaign?" he offered.

"Thank you." She took the glass and took a sip elegantly. "Delicious."

Bidou smiled. "I'm glad. May I request of the beautiful lady's name?"

"Erica," the girl replied.

"Beautiful name to match a beautiful face!" he smiled.

Karen stood nearby in a stunning red dress, talking to a handsome man in a white suit. "What do you do for a living?" she asked the man she'd been talking to for several minutes already.

"I'm a lawyer," he replied with a smile.

"That means he's wealthy!" she said to herself cheerfully. "That's amazing, is it hard?"

"It's fun, actually. I'm a defense lawyer, mainly working on murder cases, so it's quite challenging. I enjoy a decent challenge," he said.

Karen frowned. "Getting murderers off… not cool," she muttered. "But it would be too obvious if I left now. Great."

Across the room Noriko stood in the corner hiding from the scary men who had tried to flirt with her dressed in a black kimono with a pink cherry blossom pattern. "Scary, scary, scary, scary, scary!" she sobbed, shaking furiously. In the van, Seishiro sighed in exasperation.

"Noriko, I need you to get yourself together, okay? We might need you to get information out of Rin later," he tried to sooth the upset girl.

"Okay," she said quietly, taking a deep breath and holding it for several long seconds before releasing slowly. "Okay, I'm alright. I'll go back to mingling." She went over to a random guy and began to talk politely so she wouldn't stand out, keeping an eye on Rin Yuuta, a short balding man in an expensive, ill-fitted suit holding a glass of Champaign.

Meanwhile, Yuki stood at the buffet table covered in expensive food, grabbing bit food here and there, eating happily. "Yuki," Seishiro sighed, "you need to keep an eye on the staircase so Miroku can sneak up and look into the computer. Can you do that for me?"

Yuki sighed reluctantly. "I guess," she replied, walking across the room so she could see the staircase but standing in a way so that it wasn't obvious to the rest of the room that's what she was doing. "It looks clear, there's no one up on the balcony or anything, Seishiro," she reported after a quick but precise inspection.

"Good, Miroku, you're clear." Miroku left the bar nonchalantly, walking over to the staircase. Looking around, he snuck up to the second floor and down a hallway, peaking into the open rooms.

"Akira, which room is Rin's office in?" he asked his boyfriend through the headsets quietly. In the van, Akira looked down at the floor plan on a laptop computer, quickly finding the room in question in relation to the blip that was Miroku, placed by a GPS signal that all of the group members wore just in case things went downhill; another safety precaution Akira had insisted on.

"It's two doors down from you on the right, Miroku," he replied.

"Thanks." Miroku walked to the door specified, holding his ear up to the door to try and figure out if someone was inside. Hearing nothing, he carefully cracked the door, peaking in with one eye. Seeing no one, he walked in, closing the door quietly behind him. He sat down in front of the computer and turned it on only for it to ask him for a password. He tried a few possible passwords according to what he knew about Rin, but the computer didn't accept any of them. "Seishiro, I need the password."

"All right, I'll get Noriko on it. Noriko, I need you to try and get the password out of Rin."

"Roger," she replied, politely getting out of her current conversation and subtly moving toward the target.

"Hello, Rin-sama, how are you doing today?" she asked politely, her arms folded in front of her in a submissive-looking pose. Rin smiled in such a way that Noriko's inner alarm bells began to scream. She was on the verge of panicking, and only Seishiro's whispers in her ear kept her calm.

"I am doing well, and you, my pretty lady?" he asked. His voice was low and had a dangerous air to it, overall very unpleasant to listen to, especially for someone afraid of men like Noriko.

Noriko smiled softly. "I am doing very well, Rin-sama. May I ask your birthday?"

"Of course, it's February 12, 1964," he replied.

"Miroku, did you hear that?" Seishiro asked from the van.

"Yes, I did." Miroku typed in 021264, but the computer rejecting that password, as well. "Hmm, wait a minute… Seishiro, I don't think I'm going to be able to get into the computer. This password is at least twelve digits long."

Seishiro sighed. "Then we probably aren't going to be able to get into the computer. Go ahead and leave. Noriko, get yourself away from Rin somehow."

Noriko smiled. "Really? That's… oh, my cell phone." She reached into the small bag she carried with her and pulled out her cell phone, opening it and holding it to her ear. "Hello? Oh, hi Mom, what is it? Oh, you need me home? Why? I see, all right, I'll begin to head home immediately. I will be there in about half an hour. Later." She closed the phone and looked up at the man the group of young adults were investigating. "I'm sorry, Rin-sama, but I have to go, family emergency. It was nice meeting you." She bowed lightly and turned to leave. Rin, however, reached out and grabbed her shoulder.

"I didn't tell you that you could leave, miss," he hissed.

Noriko winced. "Sorry, sir, but I really have to leave." She pulled herself free and began to walk across the ballroom. "Seishiro, we may have a problem," she hissed into the headset.

"I see that," Seishiro replied with a frown. "Miroku, how close are you to the ballroom?"

"I'm walking down the staircase now," he replied.

"Hurry and go help Noriko."

"Roger," the boy replied. He lightly ran down the staircase and entered the ballroom, walking over to Noriko. Rin had caught up to her and grabbed her shoulder again, trying to stop her from leaving the party for his own perverted reasons.

Miroku reached out and grabbed her wrist firmly but gently, pulling her away from Rin and into her arms. "Hello, sis, there you are, I've been looking for you. Mother wants us home. Sir, we will be taking our leave." He wrapped his arm around his friend's shoulder, escorting her out of the building to the van. By this time, Bidou, Karen, and Yuki had already made their way out as well.

"All right, let's go," Seishiro smiled, climbing into the driver's seat. In the back, Akira pulled Miroku into his lap, wrapping his arms around the smaller boy's waist tightly.

"You are so lucky you didn't get caught," he hissed into the boy's ear. Miroku winced.

"Sorry I worried you," he whispered, leaning into the older man's chest comfortably.

Akira smiled. "You'd better be." He turned to the rest of the van, who'd been watching the two flirt with bright smiles on their faces, pleased to see their friend happy. "So what are we going to do now, since we weren't able to get into the computer?" he asked.

Seishiro sighed from the driver's seat. "I don't know," he replied reluctantly. "Miroku has never had problems getting into the computers before, we were always able to figure out the password."

"I know someone who could get us in," Miroku spoke up.

"We can't sneak back into that building, Miroku, Rin will recognize you and Noriko at the least," Seishiro informed his friend.

Miroku smiled. "Yes, but this guy doesn't need to get in. He's a hacker."

"A hacker? How good is he?" Akira asked curiously.

"Ever hear of a hacker known as Falcon?"

Akira nodded. "Yeah, he's the best hacker in the country, and maybe event he world. He's even hacked into the United State's pentagon, apparently."

"Yeah, he has. And that's who I'm going to have help us."

"You know the falcon?" Akira and Seishiro asked in shock.

"We met at a computer class in elementary school," Miroku replied with a shrug. "He taught me a lot of the programming I use in our devices."

"Surprised he didn't teach you to hack, as well, if you're such good friends," Akira commented.

"He offered, but I really wasn't interested," Miroku replied. "I like making electronic devices, not hacking into other people's computer systems."

Two days later after school, a Monday, the Yukan Club and the Flower Four met again, but this time all sitting around the table on the right side of the room.

"So when is the Falcon getting here?" Soujiro asked Miroku, who smiled.

"He'll be here in a few… oh, there he is. Hey, Fujimaru!" He waved towards the door, which opened silently. The group all whirled around to see a boy about the same age as the Yukan Club wearing blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and a black zipper jacket zipped up halfway.

"The falcon is a college student?" Seishiro asked in shock.

The boy Miroku had called Fujimaru tilted his head to the side. "Why do you think I'm a college student?" he asked in confusion.

"You aren't wearing a uniform," the young genius replied.

Fujimaru smiled. "Ah, that makes since, but you're actually wrong. I'm a senior at Mishiro Academy High School, we just don't have uniforms."

Seishiro, Akira, and Soujiro, the only members of the group who'd known of Falcon before Miroku called him in, stared at Fujimaru in shock.

"The best hacker in the world is a high school student?" Akira asked. Miroku nodded.

"Yeah, although Fujimaru hear actually gained that reputation in middle school. He's gifted," he said with a shrug. Fujimaru lifted his right hand and fidgeted with his hair.

"I wouldn't say I'm gifted, I've just studied a lot," he tried to deny the complement.

Miroku grinned. "And so modest" he teased. "Does Aoi-san know this side of you?"

Fujimaru blushed. "Shut up!" he said crossly, walking over and hitting Miroku over the head. He then sat down in the open seat next to his friend, pulling a small laptop computer out of his shoulder bag. He opened it and then reached down, pulling a flash drive out of his pocket. The case was white decorated with a black falcon, wings spread. He pulled the actual drive out, revealing a slim black devise with bold white text 'SAVE THE DATA' in all caps. He plugged the flash drive into his computer, and then turned to Miroku.

"So, who's computer am I hacking into?" he asked.

"Rin Yuuta, he works in advising at Toudou University," Seishiro informed the hacker.

Fujimaru nodded. "All right, then, I'll see what I can find on his work computer first, that computer won't be hard to find. I'll track his personal computer through there."

"You can get into his work computer? Isn't that hard to do?" Karen asked curiously.

The boy shook his head. "No, not really," he said as his hands began to fly across the keyboard. "I just have to go through the firewall, which… has surprisingly light security for some reason, that's odd. Wait a minute…"

"What is it?" Soujiro asked. Fujimaru leaned in closer to the computer screen a bit, pointing to a line on the window full of codes that, of the group, only Miroku could understand, and even he could only understand a small percentage. The line read "Incoming freshman…Elite."

"See this? Someone created a backdoor that leads directly to the files on incoming freshman," he said.

"That's probably the work of Rin, that's too big of a coincidence for it to actually be a coincidence," Rui commented.

Fujimaru frowned. "Then you're going to need to be careful if you have anything on computer files, this wouldn't have been easy hacking. I could have done it easily, but it's not something even an advanced student could do without being caught," he warned the other young adults.

"That would explain why I couldn't get into the guy's computer yesterday," Miroku commented.

"You tried to get into his actual computer?" Fujimaru asked his friend in surprise.

The other boy nodded. "Yeah, but I think the password was encrypted, I couldn't even figure out how many digits the password was."

"Ah, then yeah, probably. That won't be a problem though." Fujimaru, who'd been continuing his hacking throughout the conversation, smiled. "Capture complete," he announced a moment later.

"What did you get?" Seishiro questioned.

"The guy's home IP address," Fujimaru replied, and then began to explain before anyone could even question him. "He's checked his personal email at work before, and I can trace the other IP addresses that account has been accessed from. It's actually not that hard to do, but a lot of people overlook the possibility to even trace email access, so it's not done much. So, now I just have to hack into computer… Hmm, that's interesting."

"What's interesting?" Akira asked curiously.

"He has a powerful firewall on his home computer, even stronger than the one at the college. It monitors the system every ten seconds for suspicious activity, which is pretty rare; every twenty or thirty seconds is more common."

"What does every ten seconds mean?" Seishiro asked.

"It means that a hacker only has ten seconds to get in, download the documents they need, and get out. It would take a super computer to do that"

Soujiro sighed. "We don't have access to a super computer, though!" he complained, frustrated at reaching yet another dead end.

Fujimaru smiled. "Actually, I have a virtual super computer set up, but I'm not going to need it."

"What do you mean?" Miroku questioned.

"This Rin guy is on his computer right now, and there's a major fault in his security system. He has it set on automatic defense, but it's so secure that you wouldn't be able to do anything without causing the system to shut down even with the password to log in on as the administrator. Because of that, he has to turn the security system to low when he's using the computer. And that means it only checks for invasive entries. As long as I have the password there will be no sign of my presence, even if Rin is staring at the system specs."

Everyone's eyes widened in surprise. "That's some system!" Rui commented.

Fujimaru nodded. "Yes, it is, but it's pretty worthless if it has to be inactive when the computer is being used. So, I just need to get the password… capture complete. Now to un-encrypt it… done. And I'm in. What do need?"

Miroku shrugged. "We aren't sure, really, we don't know the exact details of the plan at the moment, only the vague idea."

"Okay, then I'll just download everything. Done." He quickly exited the program before turning to his friend. Miroku, may I borrow your flash drive?" Miroku handed him his black flash drive, and Fujimaru smiled. "You're still using the one I set up for you with the programs on it, cool. How are they working?"

"Great, actually, it makes programming my gadgets a lot easier." Fujimaru nodded as he plugged the flash drive into his computer and transferred over the data he'd just stole from the other computer. He removed it and handed it back to its owner. "Here you go, enjoy. Let me know if you need anything else."

Miroku suddenly frowned. "You aren't going to get into any trouble with THIRD-i because you hacked into a computer illegally, are you? I'd hate to be the reason you get into trouble with the police again."

"No, it's fine. After the incident last year I've been given diplomatic immunity when it comes to hacking as long as there's a decent reason for it and don't do it just for the heck of it. Considering they don't even understand what I'm doing half the time, they tend to give me the benefit of the doubt."

Miroku nodded. "Yeah, I can see why though, which everything you've told me about the last four years or so." His eyes widened. "Hey, would you, Kudo, and Asada like to help us out? We could probably use the help, that is, if the others don't mind?" Miroku looked to the other ten members of the group, who nodded in agreement.

"That's fine with me," Seishiro spoke up, "the more minds we have working on this the faster we can solve this."

Fujimaru tilted his head in thought. "Hmm, well this has to be less dangerous than helping the government catch terrorists, so sure, why not. I'll ask Otoya and Aoi tonight."

"Are Otoya and Aoi the same people Miroku mentioned?" Yuki asked, confused by the name changes.

"Ah, yeah, sorry, they're my best friends at school, Kudo Otoya and Asada Aoi."

Rui frowned. "Kudo Otoya… isn't he the grandson of the Minister of Justice?" he asked.

Fujimaru nodded. "Yeah, he is, actually."

"I'm surprised that the Minister allows his grandfather to help out a hacker," Rui commented in surprise.

"Well, the two don't really get along, and the whole terrorist deal last year didn't help," Fujimaru replied.

"Terrorist deal?" the older boy asked in confusion.

Fujimaru nodded. "Yeah, when I was in junior high I found something hidden in a picture that pointed at a possible terrorist plot. I reported it and the plot was stopped, but the group came back last year to try and take revenge. My friends and I almost died, one of them actually dying…" he closed his eyes for a second before continuing. "Then we discovered that another friend was the leader behind the terrorist plots… let's just say that last year was very stressful."

"But how'd that make your friend lose trust in his grandfather?" Soujiro asked.

"When our friend died, it was because we were locked inside our school and infected with a virus known as Bloody-X-"

He was cut off by Seishiro. "You were infected by Blood-X? How the hell did you survive?" the teen asked in shock.

"You've heard about that virus?" Fujimaru asked, avoiding the question momentarily.

Seishiro nodded. "Yeah, my family owns a hospital and we received a packet on what to do if someone came in with symptoms randomly last year, I'm guessing that was due to this terrorist incident?" Fujimaru nodded, and Seishiro continued. "How did you manage to survive?"

"There's an anti-virus now," the hacker replied.

"Why don't the hospitals have it?" Seishiro asked in confusion. "That virus is the deadliest one I've read about, that should be easily available in all health care facilities if there's any risk of it spreading."

Fujimaru smiled. "Actually, you know that new injection against this rare fatal cancer called _Ceratonine_ that came out last year?"

Seishiro nodded. "Yeah, last month's data stated that about ninety percent of the population had chosen to get the vaccine as a precaution, but what does that have to do with... Wait, that's actually the anti-virus to Bloody-X? But anti-viruses are meant to fight off the disease, not protect you from them," he said in shock.

"In most cases, yes, but this one actually does both," Fujimaru explained. "We decided to cover up the actual purpose of the vaccine since we didn't want to cause panic. Actually, almost every major country in the world has given their citizens this vaccine under some sort of cover in the last year."

"Ah, that's a good point, I'm glad we don't have to worry about that virus as much anymore, that was a scary information packet to read."

Fujimaru nodded in agreement. "All right, I've got to get headed home, I promised my sister I'd eat dinner with her tonight. I'll go through the information from Rin's computer tonight and fill my friends in if they decide to join us," he said as he closed his laptop and placed it back in his black shoulder bag.

"Bye, Fujimaru, I'll text you with the details for the next meeting, okay?" Miroku smiled at his friend.

"Later, Miroku, see you soon." Fujimaru waved at the other ten people in the club house as he left.

"He's an interesting guy," Seishiro commented once the other boy was out of sight.

Domyouji, who'd been silent since Fujimaru had arrived at the club house, not knowing much about computers or viruses, snorted. "He's not as interesting as me!" he said arrogantly. His fiancé whirled around to face him, anger glittering in her eyes.

"Domyouji! How many times do I have to tell you, if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all!" Makino lectured the older boy, who pulled at her jacket sleeve childishly.

"But, Makino!" he whined, "I can't help it!"

"Yeah? Well, you'd better learn to start, Domyouji, if you know what's good for you!"

"Makino, are you sure Tsukasa can do that? For a globally known businessman he sure doesn't have much common sense," Rui said jokingly to his one-time crush.

"Rui, now you're being mean, too! Why does everyone enjoy making fun of me all the time?" Domyouji complained.

Akira laughed. "Oh, you didn't know? Everyday is Official Make Fun of Domyouji Day," he told his friend.

Domyouji pouted. "Akira! Shut up! You're lying, I know you are! I'd know if something like that had been decided!" he said loudly, slamming his hands down on the table as he stood, leaning over the table into Akira's face. The rest of the group began laugh. "Why are you laughing!" he raged once more.

"We were only teasing, Domyouji, Akira wasn't being serious, you idiot!" Makino informed her fiancé, laughter evident in her voice.

"Hey…" Akira cut the high-tempered boy off with a smile.

"Okay, okay, let's move on, shall we? Miroku, do you have your laptop on you?" he asked his boyfriend, who nodded. "Good, why don't you pull it out so we can all go through the data and see what it tells us? I'd like to have more information when we meet back up with the yakuza heads tomorrow."

Miroku nodded, pulling out his own laptop and plugging in his flash drive. "Let's see what Rin was hiding…" he muttered to himself quietly as he opened the folder containing the documents Fujimaru had just hacked for him.

"What's that?" Akira asked, leaning over his boyfriend's shoulder and pointing to a folder titled 'Business'. Miroku shrugged.

"I'm not sure, let's find out," he stated as he double-clicked on the icon. "All that's here is a bunch of excel sheets, surprisingly," he commented. He opend the first one, and blinked in surprise. "Well, that's interesting."

"What is?" Akira questioned his boyfriend. He leaned in closer over the younger boy's shoulder to get a better view of the screen. "Is that a bunch of names?" he asked curiously, pointing at the first column.

Miroku nodded. "Yeah, and the other columns are addresses and phone numbers; basically, these documents are contact information. We just don't know if the names are of his allies, targets, or something else entirely. I'll ask Fujimaru if he'd mind looking into these people for us tonight." He grabbed his cell phone, and sent a quick text message to his hacker friend.

"Isn't that a lot of work, though? We don't want to overload him, he just joined this thing today," Makino spoke up, surprising the Yukan Club; she'd spoken very little in their presence except to lecture her idiot of a fiancé when he did something idiotic - which happened pretty frequently, actually.

Miroku shook his head. "No, actually, he has programs that will do it for him and organize it into a power point presentation. It won't take very long to flip through the slides and figure out the link between all the names and why Rin has their information in spread sheets on his computer."

"That's pretty impressive," Seishiro commented.


End file.
